


1980

by carryonstarkid



Series: Full Circle [2]
Category: Gallagher Girls Series - Ally Carter
Genre: A girl and her 'Stang, Boys who steal chocolate from the Navy, Gen, Smart Girls, Sweet sweet payback, The Hail Mary three times over, Yes I know, a PSA for all spotters, all-consuming and instant infatuation, and 1979 Leningrad while we're at it, but it's not what you think, dancin' fuel, dubious Spider-Women, it does say Matt/Abby, just trust me, questionable Chewbacca impressions, quiet nights that turn to chaos, significantly more description of 1980s Poland than anyone asked for, smart boys, spotted barn cows, the crushing possibility of what could have been
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 27,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26520982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carryonstarkid/pseuds/carryonstarkid
Summary: "And just how did a boy from Nebraska end up all the way out here at The Farm?"
Relationships: Matthew Morgan/Abigail Cameron, Matthew Morgan/Rachel Morgan
Series: Full Circle [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1878064
Comments: 42
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! You are not at the beginning of this story! This series starts with the year 1978, and you should definitely read that if you haven't already.

He’s got his headphones on, and the greater world doesn’t exist.

Instead, he is completely absorbed in a soundscape from half a world away. Slavic mutterings blend easily with searing hot street pans, static-soaked rain, and a continuous strand of muffled, melodic folk songs. His mind wanders back to the sights and smells—God, the _smells_ —of Leningrad and his long evenings spent bargaining over peppers, and pickles, and potato soups worth waiting for. He remembers the stone at his feet and every nuanced inch of dialect. He remembers the stinging scent of iron statues after a long summer rain, and he remembers dancing well into the night. His time spent studying in the Soviet Union returns to him in waves, triggered by the sound of heavy voices.

In comparison, Virginia seems pale and flat. He spends his days in darkness, translating conversations that ain’t got much meaning. He spends his nights split between a gym and a government assigned studio apartment that ain’t got much room. While his stomach yearns for the comfort of a freshly prepared stroganoff, he’s absentmindedly downing M&Ms for lunch instead, bought from the nearby vending machine for the third day in a row.

He tells himself that the peanuts have protein, and does his best to ignore his mama’s voice lecturing him in the back of his mind.

Just as he begins to debate which song would sound best through his specially designed, Army funded headphones (a downright unbreakable tie held between Queen’s _Don’t Stop Me Now_ and Pink Floyd’s _Welcome to the Machine_ ), he catches a familiar voice through a bugged frequency. He’ll auditorily observe the subject in question for another two hours or so as he continues to debate whether or not anyone can truly top Queen anyway.

He loses track of the time, dissolving into the looping, mindless effort of transmission and translation. It could be one hour or it could be four, but eventually, he feels the tap of two fingers on his shoulder, yanking him back into uniformly measured time. “You ready, son?”

Cooper seems to have aged five years in the past two. This war, however quiet, grinds at his very bones. “Yes sir,” is all Matt has to say before the two of them are on the move.

The rare break in his usually predictable afternoon is when he’s asked to take part in one of the half-dozen intelligence briefings that occupy the various conference rooms throughout the day. They’re the kind of starkly boring meetings that are inevitably pushed back by the hour, as a result of the world’s decidedly unboring events—tension in the Middle East, or advances between the Koreas, or battle carriers crossing over into waters that ought not to be crossed into. Before long, his 13:00 briefing becomes a 15:27 coffee break and he’s written all of his notes for nothing.

And sure enough, the room smells of a stale dark roast as Cooper leads them in. He leaves Matt with a pat on the shoulder, then makes himself comfortable by the carafe. “Gentlemen,” he says, pouring himself a cup. “If y’all are ready.”

The general consensus of the room seems to be that, yes, they are ready and that, no, they will not be staying for very long. It’s a handful of officers who rank well above him, each of them taking a seat around the great concrete table at the center of the room. Matt distributes an armful of identical manila envelopes, dodging chairs as they lean and spin and scooch. He lands at the head of the table in front of a chalkboard with long erased markings from a previous presentation. There’s a headphone-fueled haze that still swims around his mind, so he sharpens up with a breath.

Finally, he flips open the first page of his folder and everyone else in the room follows suit. “Gentlemen,” he says. “If you’ll all join me on page three of the transcription report, I’d like to point out the suspected Soviet interference with the growing tension in Poland.”

The hardest part about these briefings is that no one asks any questions. Everyone sitting before him knows more than he does, and any information he discovers is just one strand in a web that men far smarter than him are meant to decipher. He is met with only the click of a pen. The squeak of a chair. Matt hasn’t got much time, so he doesn’t linger on the silence.

“You can find a detailed analysis on page thirty, should you need to reference it at a later time, but in summary: one of our bugs successfully picked up a poker game in Moscow that included, among others, two high-ranking Polish officials, a former member of the KGB, and the USSR defense minister. Based on this conversation, it’s likely that the Polish People’s Republic will succumb to the rising anit-communist movement by late July—early September at the latest.”

Click, click, click. Someone in the room favors fiddling with their pen, rather than writing with it. Still, there is no comment, but Matt has learned that sometimes, the lack of critique can be a legitimate success.

“The Soviets are discussing the possibility of aid. They’ll do whatever it takes to keep the unions out of power, and it’s likely we see a repeat of the 1970 strikes—”

“Who did your Polish?”

It’s another voice in the room and, more than that, it’s a question he doesn’t quite understand. He’s usually so quick to respond, answers falling out of him, full of information that’s bursting at the seams. But he’s never heard this voice before, and he doesn’t understand the question. “Sorry?”

He looks up across the table, and lands on the man who holds his pen at eye level, thumb on the button. His tag reads Smith and his free hand is split into a series of bookmarks throughout various pages of the report. “There’s a few lines of Polish in the transcript,” he says. “Who translated it?”

Smith is greying at his temples, but he doesn’t look old. Just a pair of smile lines. Some faint crows feet. He doesn’t strike Matt as a simple man, but the question feels so far behind. “I did, sir.”

This carves a little crease right in the center of Smith’s forehead. Another wrinkle. “My mistake,” he says. “I thought you translated the Russian.”

Matt blinks. “Yes, sir.”

At some point during the course of his military intelligence career, Matt has stopped encountering people who act impressed. In Hay Springs, Nebraska, _everything_ is impressive. But in Army Intelligence, everyone has seen everything there is to see. They know everything there is to know. In a field run and operated by people who thrive on preemptive strategy, there just aren’t a whole lot of surprises.

Smith ain’t impressed. But he could get there real soon. “You translated this entire transcript?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I didn’t realize you were trained in both languages.”

It’s Cooper’s turn to talk now and when he does, he speaks with one of those wide smiles that tells everyone else he knows something that they don’t. “He ain’t.”

With that, all eyes are back on Matt. Intelligence officers from every branch of the military look on with an expectant glare, waiting. There’s an explanation owed, definitely, but the answer to this particular question isn’t written out in his meticulously constructed manila folders. “There were only nine lines of Polish, sir.”

It doesn’t change Smith’s stern expression. “Which is significant because…?”

The silence feels louder than ever before. He shuffles through his papers, checking his own facts as he speaks. “This conversation took place over the course of four hours. And the Polish is, frankly, insignificant. Conversational. It would have taken at least a week to get a formal Polish translation and all of the important parts are in Russian. This is time-sensitive information and the most efficient means of obtaining it was if I just did it myself.” He looks up. “Sir.”

Smith studies him, in a way that Matt ain’t used to being studied. “And where did you learn to speak Polish?”

There aren’t many urges that can break through Matt’s military mindset nowadays, but in this moment, it takes everything he has not to shrug. “Spend eight hours a day with Slavs in your ear, you start to pick up on what they’re saying.”

People in this line of work are never impressed, but if they are, they might look a lot like Smith does in that moment. “Sorry, you _picked up_ Polish?”

“The two are very similar,” Matt says, and it occurs to him that Smith probably already knows this. “Sir, is there a concern about the accuracy of the translation? Because I can—”

“No concerns,” says Smith with a wave. “It’s a spot on interpretation. I was going to compliment your co-translator—some of these words don't have direct English translations. The _kombinować_ , as an example—”

“Yeah, I’m not sure that the connotation is correct there—”

“It is,” Smith says, leaning forward in his chair. He sets his pen down, lets the report fall to a close, and crosses his hands atop the table. “Nevertheless, it appears as though the person I should be complimenting is _you_ , Mr…”

“Morgan,” he says. “Matthew Morgan.”

“Right, Mr. Morgan,” he says with a smile. “Any other languages we should know about before we proceed?”

He suspects that this question doesn’t truly require an answer, but Matt ain’t one to leave superior officers to linger. “Well sir,” he says. “My German is getting pretty good, but that one only just started to click a few months ago, so it’ll probably be another couple of weeks before I’m fluent.”

He’s not trying to be funny, but even so, both Smith and Cooper break out into a low chuckle. It fills the tiny room from wall to wall, swallowing the silence whole. It’s Smith who finally says, “Very good,” and Matt starts to feel a little lighter. “Please, carry on with the brief.”

He follows the order and does so with his nose down, reviewing his outline of growing tensions across the world with the kind of strict professionalism his pops would be proud of. There are no further questions from the room and each man takes notes as he sees fit. They’re back to knowing everything about everything.

The gentleman from the Navy leaves first, somewhere amidst Matt’s coverage of Poland’s systemic food failures for the lower and middle class. Then, the officer from the Air Force checks his watch and takes a leave of his own. Matt pays them no mind, knowing full well that he spends his busy days with even busier men and that none of it is to be taken personally. They peel off one by one until he’s speaking to a room of two.

And by the way Smith looks at him, Matt reckons he ain’t doing much listening anyway.

He closes his folder and stands up straight again, presenting to a room that has stopped caring about what he has to say. “Well, it looks like my time might be up,” he says. “My direct line is listed in the report, should you have any questions.”

Smith is still smiling, a restful sort of glee in his eye, as though he’s Dr. Abraham Erskine and he’s just found his Steve Rogers. His pen dances between his fingers—one, two, flip; one, two, flip—until it finally lands at the tip of his upper lip. “That was very thorough, Mr. Morgan, thank you.”

Matt stands just a little taller. “Thank _you_ , sir,” he says. “To tell you the truth, they don’t usually let me get that far.”

At this, Cooper huffs out a laugh, then turns toward Smith. “You know how it is ‘round here,” he says. “All these military men don’t know how to show up on time, but as soon as it’s time to leave, they’re suddenly bound by their watches.”

Smith nods, as though he knows all too well. “I do remember those days,” he says. Then, with a sly glance toward Cooper. “And if I’m remembering correctly, Samuel, you were one of the worst offenders.”

Cooper waves his hand, stands from his chair. “That don’t seem like the sorta thing we need to linger on.”

And Smith stands to join him, his copy of Matt’s report tucked under his elbow. “Of course not,” he says, ever so graciously. “Why linger on the truth?”

Matt feels as though he’s intruding, listening in on this conversation in the same way he might eavesdrop on a Russian poker game. He’s gotten very good at hearing the undertones of a conversation, and there is an intimacy between the two of them that extends beyond colleagues. If he had to name it, he’d say Smith reminds him a lot of Monty.

“Morgan,” Cooper says, changing the subject. He reaches a hand out to Matt’s shoulder and guides him in close. “This here is Alexander Smith. He and I used to work SIGINT together.”

Smith holds out his hand, and Matt takes it with a firm shake. “Used to, sir?”

“I’ve left my Army days behind me,” Smith says. “If this were a proper introduction, it might include my current title: Director of Operations.”

“Oh?”

“For the CIA.”

“Oh.”

Matt’s met plenty of high ranking officials in his time. Five-star generals and naval admirals. Senators and ambassadors. Hay Spring High’s class of ‘77 prom queen. There’s not much left to intimidate him anymore, but something about those three little letters sparks an uneasy curiosity.

Smith has known Matt for all of ten minutes, and already he seems to have a perfect read on him. “That was a pretty bold move, claiming your Polish translation like that,” he says. “That kind of thing doesn’t usually fly around here—they’re real sticklers for procedure. Rules, and the like.”

Matt does shrug this time, despite all of his military training against it. “Well, sir, I never saw much good in lying after you’ve already been caught.”

This earns Matt an even wider smile than before. “No, definitely not.” Smith leans in closer, his next words spoken in a low, conspiratorial tone. “It only makes your next lie that much harder to tell.”

The sentiment of the statement sends a shock down Matt’s spine. It aligns exactly with his impression of the CIA, yet it still catches him off guard. Some part of him had always believed that the stories weren’t quite true. He had thought that they were exaggerated—by the press, by the public, or maybe even by the agents themselves. But Smith’s words give Matt a glimpse into a world that lives up to all of its legends and Matt realizes that the most disorienting thing about the CIA is that they’re exactly who they say they are, despite having every reason not to be.

Cooper’s voice is a comfort in a strange moment, which is not something Matt ever thought he would say about Cooper’s voice. “I asked Alex to come meet you,” he said. “Might be worth getting to know each other.”

It’s another one of those undertones. He’s picking up on unsaid words and translating them before he can even register the process. This ain’t an introduction, so much as it’s an invitation and for reasons he might never know, _Don’t Stop Me Now_ is stuck on a loop in his head.

Smith crosses his arms across his chest and gives Matt one final look over. “How about I buy you dinner tonight?” he says. It’s phrased like a question, but Matt knows better. “You and I can have a conversation about how you want to serve this country.”

It's starting to seem like Matt is destined to have this same conversation with different men every couple of years. And while he’s honored to be asked, it all strikes him as more trouble than it’s worth. He’s only just started to feel confident with where he’s at.

But his stomach grumbles, because the truth of the matter is that even the Peanut M&Ms don’t make for much of a meal. Whatever the Director has in mind, it’s probably better than the grilled chicken waiting for him in the back of his fridge. “I’ll be working late tonight,” Matt says. “We just got the latest transcripts in from the _Kiev_ carrier and—”

“I’ll wait,” Smith says, without so much as a flinch. He pulls a small white card out of his pocket and holds it out. “I’ve got nowhere else to be except right here, talking to you. You just call me when you’re done for the night and I’ll send a car.”

It seems counterintuitive for the Director of Operations of the Central Intelligence Agency to have a business card, but it’s all right there, written out across cardstock just above his name and phone number. Matt runs the edges across the pads of his fingers. He runs his thumb over the seal. 

By the time he looks back up, Smith and Cooper are already gone, and Matt is finally down to a room with no one else in it.


	2. Chapter 2

His first mistake was agreeing to meet and his second mistake was showing up. His third mistake, admittedly, was ordering the beer-battered cod at a burger joint, but his fourth and final mistake had been his ultimate agreement to another six months of training.

If Matt’s honest with himself, he probably made the decision too quickly. There had been music and laughter. Cigarettes and beer. The night was flush with a sense of melting tension that felt specific to Friday, as Army men from across all of Virginia ended their weeks over drinks. It had been loud, and he had been tired, and the Deputy Director had made the future seem so alluring.

And while, yes, there is something to be said for the Deputy Director and his apparent Jedi mind tricks, Matt knows that maybe he was operating on too few hours of sleep. Maybe he laughed a few too many times. Maybe this was the first halfway decent meal he had since he was last back home on the ranch and maybe he was feeling just a little bit fuller than normal.

It ain’t a crime, for a guy to appreciate a little happiness.

There was all this talk about travel, and humanity, and purpose. The promise of pay raises and possibility. Overhead, Billy Joel was singing a song that Matt can never remember the lyrics to, while the bartender kept smiling at him, her lips big, and red, and round. At some point within the euphoric haze, his eyes had wandered toward a table of four, and landed on the tattoo inked into one gentleman’s shoulders—an American flag, starting at the shoulder and draping down toward the elbow—and he had started thinking about duty, and country, and service.

All this to say: Matt’s not entirely convinced that this had been his decision, so much as it had been a perfectly executed manipulation strategy from a veteran intelligence officer with a determined agenda. And he had fallen for it. He had fallen hard.

Although, even if that’s true, he’s had plenty of opportunities to back out since—a call from the Deputy Director the next morning, background checks conducted across his family and his friends, countless tests with no clear answers, both written and verbal. People don’t join the CIA on accident, and they certainly don’t hop on a bus to Camp Peary, Virginia unless they intend to stay for a little while.

So it’s possible that his presence here isn’t much of a mistake after all. Even if it does feel like one, in the part of his gut that likes to flip over on itself in his more anxious moments.

It doesn’t help that Camp Peary’s security is stricter than any he’s encountered before. Matt has spent the past year working out of an Army intelligence office, checking in each morning with badges and passcodes and the occasional psych evaluation, but none of that comes close to the level of surveillance he’s currently under. Cameras cover every blind spot, bulky and noticeable. His bag is checked with incredible detail. They ask for his license, then his passport, and after a close examination, they ask him all about his time in Russia. He’s answered these questions time and time again, so they come easy.

After much scrutiny and some cross-examination by a handful of guys who are taller, stronger, and probably smarter than he is, Matt is escorted through a buzzing gate. Then another, just behind it. The guard does not leave his side as they walk down a long, gray corridor that doesn’t seem to have much to it.

“Guess this ain’t the type of place where you want people wandering off, is it?” he tries.

The guard does not answer. Not even a grunt.

It’s a long walk—made even longer by the distinct lack of conversational hospitality, which Matt graciously chooses to ignore. They navigate out of one building and into another. They trek down a staircase here, a staircase there, and walk down another handful of nondescript hallways. They take so many turns that Matt loses track of where he is by the time the guard opens one of the nameless steel doors.

The emotionality of the room strikes him before anything else does. Apprehension. Excitement. Anticipation. Twenty-two sets of eyes turn toward him, triggered by the sound of a turning knob, and the strands of tension pull him into the hopes and dreams of everyone sitting before him.

At least, until the room realizes that he is not something—or, perhaps, some _one_ —worth waiting for.

One by one, each person’s attention drifts away and settles back along their desks. The room breaks out into a low, indistinct chatter that thrives in the whispered word. Behind him, the door clicks to a close, and Matt knows that he’s been successfully corralled toward the rest of his herd. All he can do now is hope that they’re not headed for the slaughter.

They’re all around his age. Some look like familiar Army types—broad shoulders and postures just a little too straight. Others look like they were plucked right out of a fight before they arrived. Already forgotten about, Matt finds a seat near the back of the room and lets himself listen in on conversations that he’s probably not supposed to hear.

When the door opens again, he finds himself among the mass of expectant onlookers, unsure of what he’s waiting for, but certain that he’s waiting for something. It’s a girl, this time. And one look has Matt thinking that maybe his waiting extends far beyond this moment. One look at her has him feeling like he’s been waiting his whole life for this woman he’s never met, and now she’s here, standing right in front of him, and he can finally let the lifelong suspense subside.

She’s dressed in black, from the heels she wears to the scrunchie that holds up her hair. She’s the bright smile, green-eyed goddess that all his favorite bands sing about, and her shirt hangs loose from her frame, with just enough slack for Matt to make out the words _Star Wars_ below the image of Luke and his lightsaber. There’s a streak of confidence to her, and a promise of mischief, and he craves her name in exactly the same way he might crave his mama’s apple crumble.

His glance fumbles to the seat beside him, because he’s just now noticing how empty it is. Then he looks back up at her, because how could he not? She catches him in the act, and her grin grows wider. “What’s the matter, hot stuff?” she says, a tease in her tone. “You look like you’ve never seen an empty chair before.”

She struts toward the seat, one clicked heel at a time, all with that same smile. Matt watches wordlessly as she settles into the seat, crosses her legs. At some point between the door and the desk, she’s pulled a Tootsie Pop out of nowhere and begins to unwrap it with abandon. How she got food in past security, he may never know, but before he can think too hard about it, her attention bounces back to him. “Or a woman, for that matter,” she says.

The sucker lands lightly on her tongue and she rolls it into her cheek. She’s watching him, now, waiting for him to say something—because that’s what normal people do in conversation—but he’s temporarily without words. None of them feel good enough for her. None of them carry the proper weight. But her eyes are baring into his breath, his heart, his fluttering stomach, so he scrambles out a sentence. “I like your shirt.”

She’s grinning again, and Matt decides right then that he would move mountains for that smile. 

She glances down, and pinches the hem forward to get a better look for herself. “This old thing?” she says. “I mailed away for it ages ago—I was hoping to get the one with Han and Chewy, but you know. You win some, you lose some.”

Everything about her demands attention. She’s a neon sign in a smoky room, she’s the sudden taste of cinnamon, and she smells the way _Cherry Bomb_ sounds. “Luke ain’t so bad.”

She pulls the sucker out with a pop, and a deep red stain coats her words. “Maybe not,” she says. “If you’re into that whole radicalized farmboy thing.”

And Matt’s not exactly sure what that’s supposed to mean, but he don’t exactly care, either. “He saved the galaxy.”

Abby rolls her eyes. “The Force saved the galaxy,” she says. “Luke just closed his eyes real tight and hoped to the high heavens.”

“That’s how it _works_.”

She shrugs. “I like my men to be a bit more”—she gives him a once over from head, to toe, and back—“ _actionable_.”

Matt blinks. He’s lost track of everything that’s him, and given way to everything that’s her. She smiles at him again, and it sends his stomach flipping once more.

“Abigail.” He realizes, when the moment passes, that actually two girls have walked into the room. The second feels more forgettable than the first, dressed in a simple denim, her jacket patched and pinned. She’s quieter, and softer, and the brevity of her patience shows in her every feature. “Don’t play with your food.”

Abigail pouts, with a great big lower lip and wide, round eyes. “I’m not playing.”

The girl in denim sits at the room’s final seat. Her movements look like they could come from the Army—strict and staunch and purposeful. But she doesn’t look the type. No. Both of these women look like they belong someplace made up of marble, with flowing gowns and special silverware. “No,” she agrees. “Worse, you’re teasing. Leave the poor boy alone. It’s the most intense training program in the country, and you’re not going to have the time to properly break his heart.”

“You never let me have any fun.”

“You always want to have too _much_ fun.”

“ _Rachel_ —”

“Don’t whine. It’s not becoming.”

Only after they start arguing does Matt realize they look a little bit like sisters. It brings him at least a little bit of clarity, but he doesn’t get a chance to ask the question before the door opens for a third and final time.

The gentleman who enters does not appear to have an escort. As such, his entrance is swift, and uninterrupted. Slouches turn to rolled back shoulders. Talking turns to silence. It becomes immediately clear that this is the person that the room had been waiting for, even if no one had known it at the time. “Twenty-five of you in this room.”

He’s an older guy. White stubble cuts at his jaw and the wrinkles turn his mouth into a permanent frown, but he moves quick, like he hasn’t lost a day. His voice rumbles over gravel. “According to every report they’ve ever run on my program, it’s likely that half of you come to me from military, and that the other half come from some of the best schools in the world—maybe you’re specially trained, or maybe your professors just like the look of you, so they gave me a call.”

He makes it up to the front of the room, shuffling through a pile of folders and paperwork that sit atop a bulky, metal desk. “Twenty-five of you in the room,” he says. “And it’s likely that nine of you won’t make it past the first week.”

This elicits some discomfort among his fellow recruits, manifesting in the form of shifting seats and crossed arms. Some partake in a not-so-subtle look around the room, sizing up their competition. “Of the remaining sixteen,” he goes on, “only seven of you will complete your training, and only five of you will pass it.”

Matt feels like maybe he should be taking notes, but then again, he’s not likely to forget these numbers. And if he does, he’ll surely be reminded of them in the coming weeks. 

“Twenty-five of you in the room,” says the man, one more time. As he does, he finally turns to face the class, and he reveals his most significant identifier—a years-old scar on his face, trailing from temple, to cheek, to chin. “And of the five of you who pass this training, one of you is statistically proven to die in the field.”

Matt can’t help himself, this time. He joins the majority who steal glances around the room, with a particular look toward Abigail. She doesn’t seem all that concerned. Matt begins to wonder if she even knows the meaning of the word.

At the front of the room, the gentleman says his final piece. “Ladies and gentlemen, over the next six months, we’re going to ask you to do a lot of thinking about why you’re here. Why you want to serve. What makes you special. If you are not prepared to take a one-in-twenty-five change at death, then now is the time to say so. We’ll have a guard escort you out, and you can be the first of nine that we say goodbye to this week.”

He waits. The room answers only in bated breath. Heavy air fills the silence, while a static buzz defines the room, and Matt’s left with the distinct impression that he’s not at Boot Camp anymore. 

“Very well,” he says, a sense of ease falling over him. “In that case: Welcome to The Farm.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Manipulation.”

He goes by the name of Lincoln. There ain’t a widespread consensus on whether this is his first name, his last name, or some brand of codename, although the rumors weigh heavy on the whispers. Some believe that their fathers may have worked with him. Others swear to have met him long before their arrival at Camp Peary. A few even claim to have heard of his work, through any number of mysterious and covert means. 

Matt reckons they’re more full of shit than a spingtime pasture, but that’s not his conclusion to draw.

The only sure thing is that, whatever his name may be, Lincoln ain’t a man worth crossing. He is a study in solemnity, caught in the kind of practiced quiet that only comes to people who have every reason to scream. When he speaks, the room listens, for fear of awakening the man behind the scar. “You’ve likely been told at some point throughout your years that spies lie,” he tells the class, voice low and gruff. “And while that is true, you should know that this—like everything else you’ve ever learned about espionage—is only one small part of a much larger, much darker picture.”

They’re in another one of the gray rooms, their location changing on a daily basis, even if it all looks the same. No matter where they are, Lincoln always holds a certain command over the class. “Spies do lie,” he goes on. “We lie about our motivations and our experiences. We lie about what we had for dinner, we lie about who we’re sleeping with, and most of the time we lie about our own name. We also conspire. And we beguile. We cheat, and we bluff, and we deceive. We exploit the hell out of everyone we meet—exploit their weaknesses, their money, their loved ones.”

The majority of Matt’s career in Signals Intelligence focused on strategizing and professional eavesdropping. It was a distant practice that ran more on hypotheticals and conceptual thinking than anything else. Camp Peary isn’t like that. Everything is more immediate here, with motives that his mama wouldn’t be too proud of.

Lincoln speaks as though pride ain’t an option anymore. “Folks, I don’t care if you’re jumping out of helicopters over Brazil, or if you’re attending the Spanish Ambassador’s gala—your primary objective at any given moment is to exploit people. To convince them. Your job is to convert as many assets as possible into the service of the United States government. Your job, above all else, is to manipulate people.”

With that, Lincoln reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a simple pen. He holds it up for all to see, and Matt halfway expects it to spark into flame or shoot lasers, but neither of those things happen. It is far more mundane when Lincoln says, “Each of you has a pen.” He tucks his own back into his pocket. “And you’re going to spend the next fifteen minutes trying to convince as many people as possible to give you their pen. You can’t take it from them—it must be given to you. I don’t care how or why. I only care how many pens you have in your hand when all is said and done.”

His classmates shift in their seats. Some ogle their pen as though they’re unsure of how it reached their hands, while others roll back their shoulders and sit up a little straighter, literally rising to the task. Every last one of them waits on the edge of instruction, until Lincoln glances toward the left. Then the right. “You best get started,” he says. “Your time’s running out.”

This sends a wave of urgency throughout the room, and Matt’s first thought is of Abby. He wants to find Abby. She has this way of getting into his head where she doesn’t belong, always showing up in the strangest moments with her smile, and her sucker, and her gaze. It’s only been a few days, but already feels a little sense of something. About her. About him. About them.

But she’s already popping around the room, whispering covered words into the ears of anyone she comes across. It doesn’t take long for any individual recruit to succumb to her easy energy, wholly enchanted by her company until they inevitably surrender their pen to her. She’s already through three of their classmates before Matt even has the sense to turn around.

When he does, Rachel is there, waiting for him.

Although, he gets the sense that Rachel waits for no one. She almost reminds him of his mama, in that she ain’t in the business of wasted time. His presence is merely a convenience—the closest available target in a room that she fully intends to command. She doesn’t smile like Abby. Doesn’t say hello. Instead she stands, arms crossed over her chest, chewing on a piece of watermelon Bubblicious. “I don’t suppose you’d hand that pen over,” she says, “if I told you it was the gentlemanly thing to do.”

The Midwest gets the best of Matt, and he shows off his own smile. “I ain’t usually one to pass up an opportunity for chivalry,” he says. “But I think we can both agree that this is a mighty fine exception.”

She blows a big pink bubble on her lips. It pops. “Is that real?”

He cocks an eyebrow. Looks toward his hand. “The pen?”

“The twang,” she says, shifting from one hip to the other as she gives him a single, up-and-down glance. “The accent. This whole _aw shucks_ routine. You’re serious with that?”

In a covert world that so far seems to exist mostly within the unsaid word, Rachel doesn’t seem to have much of a problem laying it all on the table. “Uh.” He’s not sure if there’s something he’s supposed to say. “Yes?”

Her head tilts ever so slightly, a question weighing heavy in her mind. “It’s just a little much. Don’t you think?”

“Do I think my accent is too much?”

She shrugs. “Not just the accent,” she says. “It’s the naïveté—the unyielding southern hospitality.”

“Well I ain’t from the south.”

“No, you’re from Nebraska,” she says, as though it’s written in black ink across his forehead. “And not one of the cities, either. You were born and raised in one of those middle-of-nowhere towns that’s fifteen minutes from the nearest Route Sixty-Something.”

If Basic Training was designed to break him in, then Camp Peary is designed to break him down, and Rachel seems determined to strike the first crack. With her words, his chest shatters, and he’s exposed in a way that feels empty and dangerous. “How did you know—?”

“Which begs the question,” she goes on, his own words falling on deaf ears. “Why does a boy from Nebraska always seem to be overflowing with all of that southern charm? Makes a person wonder if he’s hiding something.”

He catches his breath and does all he can to stitch up the pieces that she’s already torn away. “So what I’m hearing,” he says, low and slow, “is that you think I’m charming.”

Her chewing stops, only for a beat. She squints, and she stares, and Matt suddenly understands with every bit of certainty in his bones that he is very, very stupid. “I think you’re interesting,” she says. “But let’s not get the two confused.”

“We wouldn’t want that.” It’s his turn, now, to give her a once-over. Because there’s something strange about Rachel Cameron—something unplaceable. She operates as though she was born into espionage, with a perpetual tedium to every last move she makes. There’s a certain sense of timelessness to her, as though she’s already lived this world ten times over again and this round comes easy to her. “Is this all part of your plan, then?”

There’s that tilt of the head again, slight and graceful. “My plan?”

“For the pen,” Matt says. “You get me all worked up and overwhelmed, until I just hand my pen over to you? It’s some kind of spy trick I don’t know about?”

If Abby has the stars in her smile, then Rachel has the moon. It’s a small, reserved little tick of the lips, but it has the power to control oceans. “Are you worked up and overwhelmed, Nebraska?”

“You seem to think so.”

“You don’t know the first thing I’m thinking,” she says, and there ain’t never been anything truer. She eludes him just the same as night eludes day. “Rest assured that throughout this entire conversation I’ve known exactly how I’m getting that pen off of you. I’m just waiting for the opportune moment.”

“Seems like you’ve had plenty of opportunity.”

“Wait for it.”

“Wait for what—?”

“ _Rachel_.”

Abby’s voice floats over the room in a church bell sing-song. Matt watches as she comes up behind Rachel, practically skipping toward them with a fist full of multicolored pens in her hand. Her hair bounces with every step, and her smile leads the way.

Rachel’s watching Matt, a knowing sense of accomplishment resting along her features. “Hand me that pen,” she says, “and I _won’t_ tell my sister that you’re in love with her.”

Oh, she’s good.

And she knows it, judging by the smugness in her stance. She holds out her hand, expectant, not even willing to hear another word from him. Which is just as well, because Matt has nothing left to say. Abby’s approaching quicker by the moment, and there are few things more detrimental to love than the premature declaration of.

He hands over his pen, just as Abby lands at Rachel’s side and hangs her elbow over her sister’s shoulder. “What’s going on, you two?”

There’s a threat that lingers in the air between them, with the knowledge that, pen now in hand, Rachel has no reason to keep her word. She’s holding the hammer above his chest once more, both of them all too aware of the opportunity she has. She could shatter him once more, and prove her superiority one last time to him and to the world around them.

But she doesn’t do that. She simply holds up a pair of pens—a burgundy one that used to be Matt’s, and a blue one that used to be her own—because Rachel Cameron has nothing to prove. “Got two more for you.”

Abby plucks them from Rachel’s hand and adds them to the pile. “Better luck next time, Matt,” she says. “What’d she say that got you?”

Matt glances at Rachel. Then back at Abby, and at Rachel again. Thankfully, mercifully, Rachel answers for him. “I told him,” she says, but her eyes don’t leave his, “that it was the gentlemanly thing to do.”

Abby shakes her head, with a giggle that feeds the soul. She reaches out toward him, and gives him a shove on the shoulder, and everything about him turns warm. “You are too _cute_.”

As the exercise continues around them, Lincoln stands over the room with a posture that belongs to a soldier. He’s watching, observing, and at this very moment, his attention is locked on Matt. They’ve already lost four recruits this week, and maybe Matt’s just paranoid, but he also ain’t interested in becoming the fifth.

So Matt thinks. And he glances at Abby. And he smiles.

There’s hesitation to his next words, though he’s of the opinion that it’s perfectly justified given the impending embarrassment he’s about to subject himself to. “Hey Abby,” he says. “Have I ever told you about my Chewbacca impression?”

Abby’s eyes go wide. Realization dawns across her face, starting with cheeks, her brows, until her mouth falls open into grinning delight. “Your _what_?”

His eyes catch on the bundle of pens that hang in her hand. Rachel’s frozen at her side, save the grinding set of her jaw. “Don’t do it.”

“Rachel,” Abby says. “It’s a Chewbacca impression.”

“Six years of specialized training. You’re better than this.”

“Do you even know who Chewbacca is?”

“I know that it’s one of your nerd things,” she says. “And that it’s not worth failing the assignment for.”

“I really think that if you knew what Chewbacca sounded like, you’d be on my side here.”

“Abigail—”

“Because the thing is, Rach, he probably doesn’t even have a _good_ Chewbacca impression, which makes it even better.”

“ _Abby._ ”

“You’re going to thank me for this.” She practically throws the pens at him, and truthfully, it catches him off guard. He didn’t expect it to work, and he definitely didn’t expect her to talk herself into it. But with a stroke of luck, a quick idea, and almost no effort at all, Matt finds himself holding the majority of the room’s pens.

Across the room, Lincoln looks back down at his clipboard and latches on to another recruit. The weight of failure lifts from Matt’s shoulders, even if temporarily, as he once again finds himself where he’s most comfortable—unnoticed.

Well, maybe not entirely unnoticed. “Let’s hear it, hot stuff,” says Abby.

What else can he do? Matt takes a deep breath in, and says a little prayer.


	4. Chapter 4

“Matt.” His name sounds new on her lips, floating across the distance between them. He looks up—can’t help himself—away from his current conversation, because when Abigail Cameron calls his name, he is all but destined to answer. She draws him in with a single finger, beckoning him closer. “You’re with us.”

The sisters share a certain intensity, but they do so in opposite directions. They are careless versus careful, impulse versus consideration, and heart versus mind. So it only makes sense that if Abby has come to adore Matt, then Rachel has come to detest him. “Abigail, you had one job.”

When he does reach them, Abby wraps her arm around Matt’s shoulders, her other hand landing firm on her hip. “He’s with us.”

Rachel cuts her a look, but then her gaze catches on Matt and she bites at her lower lip. Without another word on the matter, she simply leans back over her table, arms wide and expression settled as she considers a set of blueprints laid out before her. “Yeah,” she says, eyes dancing across paper. “Alright, Nebraska—what is your experience with tactical evasion?”

The light falls stark over the blueprints, and the faintness of the reflection falls along the sharpest parts of her face. Chin, cheeks, brows. “Uh,” he sputters. “Minimal, I would say.”

“You don’t know what tactical evasion is,” she says, “do you?”

“I’m more of a SIGINT guy. Interception, and the like.”

Another look at Abby. It doesn’t take a cryptologist to decipher their silent codes, but if it did, at least Matt would be in more familiar territory. “Have you ever encountered a trap,” Rachel says, simply. “And if you have, how good were you at getting around it?”

“Well I’ve been locked in a cattle truck more times than once, and I’d say I was pretty quick about getting out of it.”

“I don’t want you to get _out_ of a trap,” Rachel says. “I want you to avoid it in the first place—”

“Ladies.” It’s another voice, this time Lincoln, and it sends a shockwave through their unofficial trio. Rachel rolls her shoulders back. Matt holds his chin up. Even Abby lets her arms fall back down to her side. “You’ve assembled your team?”

Rachel’s hesitancy evaporates by the time she says, “Yes, sir.”

“Good thing.” Then it’s his turn to cut a glance at Matt. It’s a short, studied sort of look that quickly finds its way to Abby. “Because you’re up.”

Camp Peary is full of secrets, some of which Matt has discovered during his training and some of which will remain a secret to him, even long after he is gone. If Peary has a worst-kept secret, it’s the Bug House—a three-storey training simulation made up of plywood, windows, trip wires, and the most technologically advanced bugs that the Office of Technical Service has to offer. 

He’s heard rumor of its difficulties, its weaknesses, and the recent failures of his classmates. There’s talk of hidden alarms and secret corridors. It’s the type of spying that Matt ain’t too keen on, if only because his closest comparable experience is the Stuarts’ annual corn maze—and he’s just not sure the two are made equal. He’s going to stand out. He’s going to get noticed.

His thoughts seem to echo through the corridor as Lincoln leads them toward their latest test. Matt gets to thinking, then hoping, then praying that this won’t be his last. He’s almost made it through the first week, but Lincoln’s statistics are always lingering at the back of his mind, and he’s got no interest in disappointing the people who got him here.

“You’re a liability.” Rachel comes up from behind, her words landing on his shoulder. It’s eerie, the way she can reach through him and just _know_. Know what he’s thinking. Know how he got here. Know him. His mind wanders toward X-Men and empaths, but the far more likely scenario is that she is deeply and assuredly skilled at what she does. “So while we’re in there, you’re either with me, or you’re with Abby—got it?”

And she’s not inclined to hide it. “You’re gonna babysit me?” he says.

“We can call it an alliance, if it makes you feel better.”

“It does not.”

“Then babysitting it is.” She shoves his shoulder on her way to the front of the pack. There’s enough determination in her step that Matt doesn’t get the chance to ask her about a stick, and where she’s likely to pull it from. She simply calls to him one last time. “Stay with Abby.”

And like a tide answering the moon’s call, Abby’s presence is inevitable as she loops her arm through Matt’s. She’s got that grin, wide across red lips, and his pops taught him better than to leave a pretty lady without an arm to hold her steady.

This is the first trap of the afternoon, but it will not be the last.

“Gentlemen. Ladies.” Lincoln stands before the door of a faux building, his words genuine. As he speaks, the team passes around a set of comms units. “You will spend a great deal of time trying to break into any number of places during your intelligence career. And you will spend an even greater amount of time trying to break out.”

Matt places the little black button into his ear. He still hasn’t gotten used to the feel of it pressing against his brain. It never sits straight, and he can’t quite hear right, and it always turns on with a firm, stuffy pop.

“You have one goal today,” Lincoln goes on. "It is basic, but it is not simple. Acquire the target, and do so without getting caught. If that seems like a daunting task, then I suggest you use this weekend to pack your bags.”

Matt looks to his left. Then to his right. No one seems willing to take Lincoln up on his offer.

Lincoln smiles. “You have seventeen minutes,” he says. “Make them count. And remember—you’re being watched.”

He steps aside to reveal a door. It’s identical to the one back home, with crisscrossed windows and a polished, golden handle, although he suspects that this door doesn’t lead to windblown wheat fields and friendly cattle. He ain’t in Nebraska anymore.

Abby’s arm is still around his own. “So we’re definitely not going in that way, right?”

Rachel is just beside her. “Not a chance.”

“You take the east?”

“If you take the west.”

“Keep track of him—I mean it.”

“I’ve got it.”

When it comes to the two of them, it’s a game of speed—not just in action, but in thought. More often than not, Rachel and Abby have already made a decision before Matt even registers that there’s an option. It’s some otherworldly combination of competence and sisterhood, each of them perfectly in sync with the other. 

Which might explain how they’re already around the corner before Matt realizes that he’s offended. “Has it ever occurred to your sister that I might actually know what I’m doing?” he says. “I _was_ Army Intelligence for two years.”

She scoffs, but otherwise doesn’t make much effort to listen. Instead, she unhooks her arm with the gentle _tap, tap_ of his elbow. “Two years,” she says, scanning every inch of the wall, peeking through windows and searching through rafters. She cranes her neck, and finally lands on a second-story double-hung that doesn’t appear to be locked. “That’s cute—give me a boost?”

There’s plenty left to say on the subject, but their minutes are ticking away. What’s more is that they’re all a little stressed, and they’re all a little tired, and Matt’s heard enough sermons on patience to know when his is wearing thin. For now, it’s best he take a deep breath. There are far worse fates than an order to stand beside Abigail Cameron. “Yeah, how?”

She cocks a perfect eyebrow. “Guess I should have known,” she says. “Something tells me you haven’t seen enough teenage rebellion in your day.”

“I rebelled plenty—and I crawled out of plenty of windows to do it,” he says. “But it doesn’t seem especially sneaky for me to go flinging you around.”

“Well let’s you and I save the flinging for later, hot stuff.” His cheeks get rosier by the second and he tries to shake them off. “And I don’t know what they taught you in the Army,” she says, “but we’re not trying to be sneaky. We’re trying to get inside.”

“Ain’t there more covert ways of doing that?”

“Do you have any suggestions?”

“I suppose not.”

“Then fling away, Matt.”

Something about her leads him to act against his better judgement. He figures she must have that effect on everyone, and at once, it's clear how Abby got to be recruited by one of the most elite training programs in the country; the rest of the world simply wouldn’t be able to handle her.

It’s a quick one-two action as she takes a running start and lands with the utmost precision in his clutched hands. He lifts, and she seems to fly through the air, wingless, weightless, as though she hasn’t a care in the world. Without effort, she grabs the sill and scales the remaining wall. As she holds herself steady, her sleeve rolls off of her shoulder, shaking with the grip, but it doesn’t seem to affect her. With one arm locked into place, she uses the other to feel along the trim, searching for traps. 

While she’s up there, hanging and serious, Matt has no doubts that he’s found the real-life Jessica Drew. “It’s clear,” she says with a strain.

She doesn’t just slide open the window—she throws it open. She doesn’t just climb in, but rather, she hurls herself over the edge. As the days go on, the pieces of Abigail Cameron fall more into place and everything she does seems to fit in with everything he learns about her. In a world of cover legends and disguises, no one is more themselves than she is.

Her head pops back out, looking down on him. “Are you coming?”

“Well I’ve been told I ought not leave your side,” he calls up to her. At some point, his voice has turned into a big, round whisper. “So should I claw my way up the plywood walls, or would flying be easier?”

Abby squints. Studies him. “I’ll come get you.”

“That’d be mighty helpful.”

“Well if you’re going to have an attitude about it...”

“No attitude,” he says, holding up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

“Of _course_ you were a boy scout.”

She’s gone before he can tell her that he was, in fact, an Eagle Scout, but the longer he is left to stand in his own silence, the less he thinks he should arm her with that information.

There’s a click of a lock, quicker than he expects, and he has just enough time to revel in a brief awe before she slides the first floor window to its side. “Let’s get going.”

It’s still a little bit of a climb, but she’s able to reach out her arm and pull him up. He wonders if his palms are too rough against the smooth skin of her wrist, wonders if he’s too heavy, wonders if his breath still smells like the cold cuts and mustard he had for lunch. She pull, pull, pulls at him, and he hops in after her.

He tumbles through the frame without an ounce of grace, losing track of his limbs and landing with a clatter. The whole house seems to shake as he falls to his knees, his hands. His head hangs with a dizzying uncertainty and it takes him a full five seconds to realize that he’s landed on top of Abby.

He can’t see much, but in the dim light cast in from the window, he can see her big, green eyes looking up at him. Ice runs through his veins, a white streak of unease eating at his lungs, and he’s breathless. He scrambles for something—anything—to say, and his best isn’t good enough. “It’s dark in here.”

Abby lets out a groan, mixed with something that resembles a laugh. “Are you under the impression that many people leave their lights on when they’re not home?”

“I just wasn’t expecting…” and he trails off, because his attention gets caught on the waves in her hair. On the point of her chin. On everything that makes her the most beautiful woman of whatever room she walks into. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”

“Hey Matt?” Her words are a whisper now, too.

“Yeah?”

“If you don’t get off of me,” she says, “there’s a nonzero chance that an alarm is going to go off in the next seventeen seconds.”

“Oh.”

She’s up on her feet before Matt even realizes that she’s shoved him off by the shoulders. Every move she makes looks as though it’s up against a clock that Matt can’t see—ticking away somewhere in her mind. She searches through the darkness, scanning every inch, but the seconds move forward and she stays the same.

Matt looks up on the wall, towards a panel lit up in green. It calls to him, drawing him closer, and when he stands, Abby’s too entrenched in the mission to notice. She searches, and searches, not knowing that the answer is right before them. He wants to help her. He wants to set her at ease, even if only for the next eight seconds.

As he inches closer he can begin to make out the words, including a tiny _DISARM_ spelled out in the lower right corner. “Hey,” he says, pointing. “It’s over here, I’ve got it.”

She spins—quick, but not quick enough. She reaches out to him, and her voice is no longer a whisper when she says, “No, wait, that one’s—”

It all starts with the press of a button. 

It’s soft under his thumb, but when he presses it, the world turns harsh. Bright, round flood lights flash on, casting dark shadows across Abby’s face. Sirens begin to blare, a shrill, dissonant sound that burrows past his ears and jabs into his jaw. Abby shoves him, straight in his chest, and he loses his balance—rocking, teetering, until he falls back out of the window even faster than he fell in. On his way down, long metal doors clank shut over every opening, and when he hits the ground, he lands on his back, and every scrap of air escapes him.

He can’t breathe. What just happened? He can’t breathe.

His team comes running around the side of the house, Rachel leading the charge. “What the hell’s going on?” she says, voice steady above the noise.

From behind them, Lincoln approaches, wholly in control. He’s heard these sirens plenty of times before, and he will hear them plenty of times after. His limp seems especially prevalent from Matt’s current position on the ground, noticeable as Lincoln approaches him. He stops at Matt’s head and with the click of a remote, the sirens stop their song.

Lincoln looks down at him. Stares. Matt’s finally able to catch his breath, but he doesn’t dare risk it. “False security pads,” he says. He sounds like he’s speaking to the class, but he doesn’t look away from Matt. “Espionage 101—not everything is as it appears. In your attempt at a covert entry, you have alerted the premises to your arrival. I applaud you, Mr. Morgan. This is something of a record.”

Matt’s eyes squeeze shut as he lets out his first breath. He imagines that when he opens them again, Lincoln won’t be there anymore.

That ain’t the case.

“I reckon it’s not a good record, sir?”

Lincoln clicks his tongue. Twists his head. “Not unless you were going for the quickest in-and-out.”

Matt doesn’t get another word out before he hears the snap of Rachel’s earpiece hit the ground. She kicks at the wall on her way out, which is just as well, because Matt’s got nothing left to say for himself.


	5. Chapter 5

“Come in.”

It’s an office of a temporary sort, lacking any family photos or hanging degrees. Bare grey walls stand begging for plaques, and medals, and flags. There is only a desk and its chair, sitting beside a pale cream filing cabinet with a drawer drawn open. Lincoln sits hunched with a pen in his left hand, scribbling into manilla as though a life depends upon it. Matt slips in through the door, his knock still lingering on his knuckles.

Lincoln speaks fairly straight by Virginian standards, with a distinct non-accent that belongs to Michigan, or Ohio, or Illinois. He doesn’t stop his scribbling as he says, “What can I do for you?” 

Matt’s not sure if he’s supposed to leave the door open or if he should shut it behind him, and Lincoln hardly seems to be in the mood to answer any questions. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

With this, finally, Lincoln looks up from his papers, peering over thick-framed glasses. “Matthew,” he says. “You’re Cooper’s boy?”

For all his life, Matt’s been _Andrew’s boy_ to friends and strangers alike, but Nebraska is a couple thousand miles away by now, and his pops’ name doesn’t appear to reach past the Appalachian. Out here, they know Matt by the name of a different veteran. “Insofar as I can be, sir.”

Lincoln stands, allowing his glasses to fall to his chest, where they hang from a thin beaded chain. He’s the type of man who looks older up close and while he’s still quick on his feet, Matt can see the war in his joints. He passes Matt with the slightest limp, and closes the door for him, unwilling to wait for an unsettled mind. “Tell me, Matthew,” he says, crossing his arms. “What the hell are you doing here?”

There ain’t no niceties in espionage, and that’s a damn shame, if only because it would give him more time to come up with answers when folks start asking him these kinds of questions. “Excuse me, sir?”

“You heard me,” he tries again. “Why are you here? No formal spycraft training, no college education. Your only intelligence experience is your training in Russia, just shy of a full year, and then seven measly months of transcripts and translating.”

“Well I think you’ll find that in those seven months, I exceeded every expectation—”

“I’ve got your resume, Matthew,” he says, and he seems to look over top of his glasses again, even though he’s no longer wearing them. “I don’t want to know about the Yugoslavian arms deals you prevented—I want to know why you’re here, in my program, at this camp.”

“I’m here to serve my country.”

It’s an answer that tends to carry heft in his usual company, but the space between them lands flat as he says it. Lincoln merely grunts. “There’s plenty of ways to serve your country.”

He’s trained to see an attack before it hits, piecing together new information as it comes to him in words, and tone, and inflection. This is one of those phrases that, if still at his desk, Matt would mark with a thin, red sticky note. “I was told that I was needed here.”

“Were you, now?”

And maybe a sticky note here, too. “By people I trust, sir.”

“I’ll bet.”

There’s a second conversation happening, far below the surface, though Matt’s not likely to place it without a little assistance from the opposing party, so he gets right to it. If they can abandon all niceties, then so can he. “Is this about the Bug House?”

Lincoln’s smiles are more freely given than most men in his field, which makes them all the harder to read. He finally lets his arms fall as he walks back toward his desk, leaning up against its edge. “It’s not _not_ about the Bug House.”

“Sir, if I could explain—”

Lincoln holds out his hand, palm forward. “Save it,” he says. “There’s no excuse you can give me that I haven’t already heard ten times over, year after year.”

“Oh, I ain’t looking to make excuses—”

“I said save it, Matthew,” he says again, and his full name sounds the same as it does on his mama’s lips after an unfavorable run-in with one of her many rules. “This is the point in your training where you and I have a conversation about your choice to pursue espionage, and the likelihood that you actually survive it.”

The talk of life and death sobers him up a little, and the soldier in him is reminded that Lincoln is a superior. “Yes, sir.”

“Because it’s my job to tell you that you’re not anything special.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I know that Cooper has probably done a pretty good job of building you up and making you think that you’re really something spectacular,” he says, and there’s no malice in it. Only facts. “But I see boys like you all the time—exactly your age, with the exact same training, and the exact same heart stitched into your sleeve.”

“Heart, sir?”

Lincoln gestures to the seat in front of him. It’s a hard, dark plastic chair that looks it was made more for torture than for comfort, but Matt follows through on the unofficial order. “They send me young men like you every year,” Lincoln says. “Strong, smart, patriotic—I won’t deny you any of those titles. But the Army has always valued heart, as well. They love the kind of ambitious devotion that’s easy to spot and even easier to manipulate. I can appreciate it from a distance, but in my field, heart doesn’t get you devotion. It just gets you dead.”

Matt feels his own heart beating against his lungs, keyed into an adrenaline that doesn’t feel right. This is it. He’ll have to go back to Cooper. He’ll have to return to eight hours of headphones and vending machines. He’ll have to head back to Nebraska, tail between his legs, and face his pops. 

“You had a nice job with Army Intelligence,” Lincoln says. “Good income. Decent leadership. You’re good at it. You picked it up quicker than most. And there aren’t many safer places in the world than the backside of a desk.”

His heart has made its way up to his ears, now. The words come out of his mouth before he even knows what they say. “I want to be good at this. I was told I could be really good at this.”

“And I’m telling you that you won’t be.” Grey eyes cut at the flush in Matt’s skin, cool against his heat. “ _Because someone said so_ is not a good enough reason to be here. The Army can tell you whatever they want about your talent, but in the end, they’re not the ones going out in the field. You are. And make no mistake about it, Matthew—if you continue down this path, you won’t live long enough to make any kind of difference in this world.”

Matt doesn’t often give way to speechlessness, but there’s a pressure building up in his chest, his head, his mouth, and it seems like such a strain to push words through it all. “So you’re saying…?” he tries, but he falls short. Tries again. “What are you saying?”

“Here’s what I’m saying—while you’re here, you had better make damn sure that espionage is something you _do_ , and not just something that happens to you. Because if you set off an alarm out there,” he points northwardly, toward some indeterminate outside, “you won’t have Abigail Cameron around to shove you out of a window to safety.”

He suspects that Lincoln ain’t the sort of man who makes many mistakes, but bringing Abby into this conversation is a rare exception. While not especially long-lived, their friendship is Matt’s first since Fitz and Monty, and there’s not a lot Matt won’t do when it comes to loneliness, and the people in his life who help ease it. “Due respect, sir, but you’re wrong about that.” He stands, and it feels dangerous in the moment. “Abigail Camron is always going to be around when I need her.”

It’s another one of Lincoln’s smiles, this time accompanied by laughter, light and simple. “And what makes you think that, do you suppose?” he says. “Why do you think you have so much trust in a woman you didn’t know a month ago?”

“Well I reckon I’ve got a pretty good gut for these sorts of things,” Matt says. “And I know a trustworthy person when I see one.”

Lincoln shakes his head, not out of inaccuracy, but rather, out of naiveté. “Or,” he says, “you’re being manipulated by a highly trained agent, whose primary skills include lock-picking, asset conversion, and honeypotting.”

And it’s true that just about everyone likes Abby. Only now does it occur to Matt that she’s planned it that way. 

Lincoln must be able to see the realization on him, because he doesn’t push the subject any further. Instead, he puts his glasses back on, and walks around to the other side of his desk. “You want to be here?” he says, returning to his seat. “You’d better convince me that you can. Because I’ve got no problem telling you to pack your bags. It’s far easier than standing at your grave.”

These are the words that echo in Matt’s thoughts throughout the weeks that follow.


	6. Chapter 6

He has no earthly idea where it is women put things, when confined to the pocketless doom of an evening gown.

He suspects there may be a protocol of some sort, though it must be marked with a level of classification that Matt doesn’t yet have clearance for. The closest he ever came to breeching it was at his junior prom, when his date made quick work out of utilizing  _ his  _ pockets in the absence of her own. Matt thought that was awfully smart and made a point to offer his services the next year, but his date to the senior prom required no such assistance. To this day, he still isn’t sure where she kept her lipstick.

It occurs to him that this is likely the reasoning behind purses, but Abby ain’t wearing a purse—not even one of those little ones with the clip on top—which begs the question: where is she holding everything?

More specifically, where is she holding the diskette?

His eyes catch on the sight of sheer, silky emerald, wrapping around her waist and flowing down her leg. It puffs around her shoulders and it cuts at her neckline. From her pinned up hair to her high-heeled toe, Matt searches for a little square silhouette, but she’s tucked it away someplace impossible to see, because she’s good. Because she’s better than him. Because Matt doesn’t have a chance at completing this mission.

Get the disk. Don’t get caught. It seems so simple on the surface.

He’s quickly learning that nothing involving Abigail Cameron is simple. “You clean up pretty good, hot stuff.”

Delicate green gloves climb up her forearm as she holds out her hand, anticipating his kiss. He takes it, as any gentleman would, but as he greets her, his gaze lingers on the smoothness of her dress, searching for any sign. “You sound surprised.”

It isn’t tucked into the seam at her hip. It’s not stashed away in her bow. She might be hiding it in her hair, but that seems strange even for her. “Not surprised,” she says. “Just curious.”

The way she says it catches his ear—a signal among static—but he lacks the necessary context to decipher it. Instead, he adds it to the running list of things he doesn’t understand about women, and about this woman in particular.

Her arm slides through his, finding its usual spot as the pair of them make their way around a decorated table. There are salad forks, and dinner forks, and dessert forks. There are wine glasses and water glasses. He can think of no reason why a person might need so many knives in a single sitting, as he tries to recall his studies from the night before. One is for butter, and another is for steak. He’s split fifty-fifty on whether or not the third knife is just there to mess with his head.

It doesn’t seem entirely fair that he has to manage a faux data recovery operation against the best recruit in their class  _ and  _ keep track of his cutlery, but it’s impolite to complain.

Lincoln hasn’t yet entered the grand dining room, but even so, Matt hears his words just the same as he has, day after brutal day—words of survival, and worth, and honor.  _ It’s far easier than standing at your grave. _ Matt is a simple man surrounded by geniuses, but even he knows it ain’t no coincidence that he’s been assigned the hardest task of the evening. Lincoln wants his proof, and he wants it sooner instead of later.

Abby’s free hand falls to his shoulder, grounding him in a way that is, so far, rare between the two of them. She ticks a subtle nod toward her chair before Matt catches sight of the nameplate: Astoria Clarke, Duchess of Valancia. “A duchess?” he teases.

“Surprised?” she says.

“Not surprised,” and that much is true. She’s dressed like a duchess and carries herself twice as well. If anyone in the room can play the part, then it is almost certainly her. “Just curious.”

She smiles like he’s cracked her code, leaving bold, green strikes across his heart. Her hand lingers along his sleeve as he pulls her chair out for her, and helps her sit. She’s perfectly dignified, and utterly royal, and everything a duchess ought to be. It comes to her as though she’s played the part a dozen times over, and Matt once again finds himself wondering how Abby spent her time before landing at The Farm.

As she sits, he makes one last effort. He scans the curve of her collar and follows the length of her spine. He examines the shine of her silk and searches for bumps, kinks, or folds. She has freckles along her shoulders and a little brown mole at the base of her neck. Her hair curls up at the bottom and—

Lincoln walks into the room, dressed as a Spanish general of every badge and stripe. He’s surrendered the usual swiftness to his step, replacing it with a distinguished stride that belongs to distinguished men. He enters as though he is simply another guest at the table, but no amount of military dress can cover him in this crowd. For the rest of the night, every last recruit in the room will know where he is, what he’s doing, and how they can best avoid him.

Matt starts by walking the long way around the table, head down, shoulders up, as he searches for his own table setting that bears his new title as a US Senator. He greets his classmates as he passes, and none of them look like themselves. Some of them talk to him for much longer than they should, considering the fact that his only objective at that moment is to sneak past them. He spots his seat about halfway through a lengthy conversation with the Italian Ambassador to France, who usually goes by the name of Anthony, but tonight assumes the legend of Luca Bianchi.

When he breaks free, he heads straight toward the safety of his seat, stopped short only when he notices his neighbor.

If Abby owns every room she walks into, then Rachel barrows it. Her presence is purposeful, driven by intent, and there’s always a sense that her time is somehow limited. She arrives, completes her business, and leaves. There is no lingering charm and there is no time to gather dust. Rachel extends her existence as needed, then reclaims it for herself at the soonest possible moment.

She’s dressed in all white, with big round daisies pinned in long dark hair. As he takes his seat, her posture shifts, but she doesn’t say a word. No hello. No acknowledgment. Matt keeps quiet on his end because, historically, anything he says to her is met with inexplicable disdain. So the two of them sit, and they don’t say anything, and Matt tries to match her posture.

Except that the whole thing feels awfully unfriendly. “You look nice,” he says. “I like the flowers.”

She cuts a glance at him. “I didn’t choose them.”

“Okay.”

Around them, classmates find their respective seats, one by one. The first round of soup makes its way around the table. Everyone seems to know which spoon to use, and which language to speak, and exactly how to sit. Each time Matt steals a glance across the table, Lincoln is already looking back at him, waiting. Expectant.

In this case, all he can do is look toward Abby again. She’s at the other end of the table, having plenty of fun with her cover legend—laughing, and listening, and telling stories that aren’t her own. She was absolutely born for this, and Lincoln isn’t worried about standing above her grave.

Matt has to find the disk.

If he couldn’t find it when she was hanging on his arm, he can’t imagine he’ll find it from seven seats away, but that doesn’t mean he won’t try. He sorts through each ruffle, trying to find any imperfections. He searches every seam.

They make it until the first bite of his bread pudding before Rachel finally snaps. Her spoon clatters against the china in a way that is unbecoming of the heiress to America’s largest oil distributor, but hardly anyone notices. Her voice is lower than the room’s chatter when she says, “Am I going to have to watch you drool over my sister all night?”

His fork—the dessert fork, which he knows only by process of elimination—still hangs taught in his mouth, frozen in place, as he first tries to process her words and then tries to come up with his own. “M’not drooling,” he says through his teeth, and upon hearing how ridiculous he sounds, he finally removes his fork. “And right now, she’s not your sister.”

“Would you take this seriously?”

“You’re the one who’s referring to an undercover agent by her true identity.  _ I’m _ as serious as a side of Brussels sprouts.”

“You’re ogling at her like you’ve got nothing better to do with your time—don’t you have a mission? Or did they finally take pity on you and decide you weren’t worth the challenge?”

“Well that ain’t a very nice thing to say to someone who just complimented your flowers.”

“I didn’t choose the flowers.”

“And I’m not staring at your sister.” He pokes at his pudding, but the sweetness has been sucked out of it. Though she may be mostly wrong, the fact is that Rachel is still a little bit right. His trainability has been put into question, and staring at Abby isn’t going to do much to prove himself. “But as long as I have your attention—where is it that women hold things when you’re wearing dresses?”

She’s very good at these silent glances. They’re small, intricate twists of her features that leave him with big, complicated emotions. Guilt, for his ignorance. Failure and inadequacy. Envy, for all the things she knows and he doesn’t. For a moment, all he can do is endure her glare, until finally, it all clicks, and her expression softens. “She’s your mark.”

Matt’s not very well practiced in having his cover blown, so he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say next.

Rachel has him covered. “You’re not staring at her,” she realizes aloud. “You’re staring at her assets.”

“Careful, now.”

“What is it?” There’s a rare spark to her, emblazoned with an excitement that he’s only ever seen on Abby up until this point. It catches in their eyes—those Cameron sisters—and not even their mysterious covert training can conceal it. “Is it a file? Is it gear?”

For the first time since they’ve met, Rachel speaks to him as though she’s interested in what he might say back, and it tempts him into conversation. After all, his duty as an intelligence agent is to exchange intelligence, and it feels good to finally break her down. It’s damn near impossible to resist, when she looks at him like that, and so he doesn’t try. “A diskette, according to my file.”

She smiles, as though she’s won their unofficial guessing game. “I see,” she says. “And you can’t find it on her person?”

“Well, it’s just that dresses don’t seem to have pockets.”

“It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that I am already painfully aware of the failures of women’s fashion.”

“Right.”

“And this diskette,” she says, turning toward the end of the table that overflows with drinks and laughter. “It’s probably… what? Small, square?”

“Black,” he offers.

She nods. “And you haven’t been able to identify it?”

Matt flashes his attention sparingly toward Abby’s emerald, in an attempt to remain at least somewhat covert against Rachel’s outright observation. “Figure my next move is to sneak on over there and give it one more good look.”

“Well you’d better get on it, then.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m almost out of forks,” she says, taking a delighted bite of her own dessert. “Which means you’re almost out of time.”

She’s smiling ever so slightly, just barely stretching to the corner of her mouth. It occurs to him in that moment that Matt would never want to put money on a card game if she were sitting at his table. Pockets, it seems, are not the only womanly thing to elude him.

So he joins the handful of classmates who have stood and started to wander, making his way back to where he began the evening. As he does, he keeps a steady eye on Abby, watching as she delights and distracts her company. Again, Lincoln’s words find their way into his head.  _ A highly trained agent, whose primary skills include lockpicking, asset conversion, and honeypotting. _

He steals a glance at Lincoln next who, for the time being, has found another recruit to intimidate.

The room seems to dissolve into nothingness outside of the diskette and himself. His mission consumes his breaths. With each step, he keeps his shoulders rounded and tries to make himself as small as he can be. He’s careful to move quietly and quickly, taking cover behind pillars and plants alike. When he does finally reach Abby, he avoids the many suits surrounding her, so as not to draw attention in a crowd.

It’s not in her sleeves. It’s not along her gloves. There’s another bow on her back, empty at a glance, and her skirt flows far too freely to be of any use. He runs through a checklist in his mind, one stitch after another, until something catches his eye.

A line out of place. A seam unsewn. Maybe it’s a trick of a desperate eye, but maybe it’s exactly what he’s looking for. That's it. It must be. Ice freezes his every last muscle as he desperately tries to recall any pickpocket training he has (and by God, it is limited).

He says his prayer and hopes that the Heavens are in a graceful mood.

In one moment, he’s reaching out to pull the disk away. In the next, his head is throbbing, and his throat is screaming, and he’s stuck. No matter how quick he was, Abby was going to be quicker, and before he knows it, the Duchess of Valancia has him pinned to the wood-paneled walls of the Camp Peary dining room. “Looking for something, Senator?”

Her foot is between his, as her knee pins him there. Her arm rests easily along his windpipe. It’s impeccable form, and something he would probably admire if he weren’t more concerned with the state of his breathing. It calls the attention of the room—each and every one of their classmates now keyed into his failed mission.

And over Abby’s shoulder, beyond the poof of her sleeve, Matt sees Rachel holding up a small, square, black diskette.

Hell. Matt doesn’t know much, but he knows revenge when he sees it.

Rachel tucks the disk behind one of her daisies, and Matt just lets his head fall back against the wall with a good, sturdy  _ thunk _ . 

“It was a good try, Matt,” Abby says, lower than a whisper.

Blood rushes hot to his face, as the oxygen pulls away from his brain. Dizzy, dreary circles start to spin in his vision. He tries to pry her arm away and while she does ease up, she doesn’t completely let go. And anyway, it doesn't help the sinking feeling in his stomach. “Trying ain’t good enough.”

“I could teach you how to—”

“I don’t  _ want  _ you to teach me anything,” he says, and her attack stings at his eyes. Leaves them watering. Her hands finally fall to his shoulders instead, and he coughs. It’s loud. Everything he does is too loud for the moment. “I just want to be…”

But the words escape him. Good? Impressive? Talented? Alive? What does he even want?

Abby nods, like she has all of the words he lacks. “I’m going out for drinks this weekend,” she says, and if anyone hears her, they at least have the good sense to turn away. “Blowing off some steam. Looks like you could stand to come with.”

And of all the people watching on, Matt avoids one pair of eyes until he can’t anymore. Lincoln glares, no longer a Spanish general, but rather, the man responsible for Matt and all things future. Their conversation runs on repeat in Matt’s head, words overlapping.  _ There’s plenty of ways to serve your country. _ And maybe he’s right.

Matt wipes at his nose, and can’t help but hang his head. “Yeah,” he says, and he can’t take the staring anymore. He won’t wait for an invitation. Cover sufficiently blown, Matt begins to leave. “If I’m here that long.”


	7. Chapter 7

The glass hits the table with a sturdy  _ clunk _ , leaving foam to trail along its outer curve. The drip settles in a pool around the base—the start of a fresh ring atop a table that is already home to many. “Drink up,” she says. “You look like you need it.”

Abby is the sort of person who never quite looks like she belongs anywhere, always a step above the rest of the room. But if there is any one place that suits her, wholly and completely, then it is surely a Williamsburg bar at ten o’clock on a Saturday evening. She’s all smiles and serenity, sipping down a tequila sunrise like the bartender made it special just for her. The ease of the evening flows through her shoulders, while the harsh neon from the bar settles softly in her hair. Every song is her favorite song, and she dances like everyone’s watching—because everyone  _ is  _ watching. She’s inevitable, in that way.

He almost feels bad, turning her down. “I’ve gotta be to church in the morning,” he says, straining above the music. 

She joins them at their table and sticks out her lower lip at him, her straw mere inches from her mouth as she stirs at her own drink. “It’s just one beer.”

She’s all but drowned out by a live band. The shadow of Matt’s hand is cast three times over as, again, he waves her off. “I don’t drink,” he says. “Can’t, anyway—not for a couple months still.”

“That doesn’t seem to stop Abby.” Rachel’s sitting on his other side, huddled up in the comfort of her denim jacket. Her arms are crossed, revealing worn white patches in her elbows, and Matt’s never seen a more clear example of an older sister being dragged along by the younger. “How did you get past the bartender this time?”

Abby bites her lip, tucking a guilty grin behind her teeth. “A magician never reveals her tricks,” she says, just before she sips up the last drop of gold. “I should have topped mine off while I was up there—I’ll go get us more drinks.”

“ _ I’ll  _ go get us more drinks.” Rachel steals a calculated glance over her shoulder as she stands from the table. Matt wonders if this is a product of her spyhood, or her womanhood, or both, though he doesn’t get the chance to ask. “You’ve committed enough federal crimes for one night, I think.”

“But the evening is just getting started,” Abby says, with a wink to Matt.

Rachel is unamused. “Another sunrise?”

Abby’s shoulder’s slump. “Yes, please.”

Rachel slides easily between the crowds, grace and poise in every effortless step as she splits the sea of bar goers before her. She doesn’t utter a single word along the way—her presence does the speaking for her and the room listens without even knowing it. Matt keeps a watchful eye, because that’s how his mama raised him, but he’s never seen a person with so little need for backup.

Abby fishes the cherry out of her rounded glass and pops the whole thing into her mouth, stem and all. “You’ll have to excuse my sister,” she says. “I love her, but she’s always kinda been a drag, and it’s only gotten worse since she came back from college.”

She wrestles with it, and Matt gets stuck on her lips, watching as they flatten and pucker and purse. “Oh?”

She doesn’t seem to notice. “Oh yeah,” she says, cherry tucked in her cheek. “Thinks she’s the bomb, just because she graduated from her dream school—as if there isn’t an entire list of Ivy Leagues better than Georgetown.”

Where Matt comes from, ivy belongs to gardens and leagues belong to baseball, and the two rarely come together. People from Hay Springs are lucky to ever leave Hay Springs, and they definitely ain’t hopping on a bus to Harvard on their way out. It’s such a strange and stark contrast to how Abby speaks of them—casual, and certain, and bored. “Now she needs everyone to think she’s the smartest person in the room, all the time,” she goes on. “Or else she might actually explode.”

Matt thinks of a diskette and her daisies. “Well she does seem awfully smart.”

“That’s the worst part,” she says. “She  _ is _ always the smartest person in the room, which just makes her  _ insufferable _ —hey, you want to see something cool?”

“Always.”

She sticks out her tongue with a flat, “Ta-da!” Sure enough, there’s a cherry stem tied in a neat knot. It’s the kind of thing that drops Matt’s heart through his stomach, but she’s smiling like she has no idea. 

He gulps. “Oh wow.”

She plucks the knot from the tip of her tongue and drops it into the remnants of her last drink, stirring her ice with a chewed up straw. The band plays another song and Abby starts swaying without a second thought. “She really is better once you get to know her,” she shouts. “She gets way nicer. But that’s the trick with Rachel.”

“Getting nicer?”

“Getting to know her.” She dances with her shoulders first, and everything else follows with ease. She won’t last much longer in her seat. “Come dance with me.”

“Nah, no,” he says. “That ain’t something you wanna see.”

Her hands fall to his shoulder, the devil’s temptation in her pout. A starburst of warmth starts at her touch and crawls through his veins, inch by golden inch. “Come dance with me,” she says again.

A certain sense of something washes over him and he just about gives in. He just about gives up on every inhibition he’s ever had, and he joins this beautiful woman on the dance floor. After all, it’s rude to make her ask twice, and she is ever so pretty in this light.

Still. “I’m not the biggest fan of a dance floor.”

“That’s why I got you the beer, silly,” she says, standing. “That’s dancin’ fuel.”

“Then it’s a shame I can’t drink it.”

“Damn shame,” she agrees, getting her hips into it now. “But if you’re not gonna, then someone ought to.”

She’s quick about it. Practiced. In one fell swoop, she swipes his drink and begins to chug. There is no effort. There is no strain. She drinks like a Russian grandfather on the eve of a New Year. It slides down smooth, one bubble at a time without a single drop wasted until she lets it fall with a sigh. For the second time that night, the same glass lands directly in front of him, this time empty and marked with a red lipstick stain.

She belches, and Matt thinks he’s in love.

“See you out there,” she says with another wink, and she sways her way into the crowd, a sight to behold beneath the rolling sparkle of a disco ball cast in blue. She stands out against the colors, and the hair, and the smoke, making fast friends with anyone and everyone she comes into contact with. The evening was made for her—or rather, she’s made it her own.

Two more drinks land on the table with far less fervor than those that came before and Matt’s attention once again falls on Rachel who, as far as he can tell, is making every effort not to grant any attention in return. Her eyes glance around the room and when she sits, she slouches, arms crossed and jaw set crooked. Everything seems to be more interesting than he is, as she fixates on the lights, the bar, and the table to their left.

Each avoidant look only serves to build the buzz between them—a righteous, unsettled sense of prickling tenderness that replaces any air in the room. They’re not sure what to do with themselves if Abby isn’t there to force conversation.

Matt’s tried being friendly before. It ain’t a mistake he’ll be making twice. “I’m gonna head to the bathroom.”

She doesn’t meet his gaze, her next words a grumble. “Careful not to set off any alarms on the way there.”

Matt’s seen plenty of mean people in his day. He’s seen the high school bullies, and the communist dictators, and everyone in between. Some people are just born with a mean streak in their bones, and they naturally gravitate toward spite and misery. 

Rachel ain’t one of them. He can tell when a person is meanspirited—he sees it in them, somehow. Maybe it’s in their movement, or maybe it’s in their smile. Maybe it’s something in the buzz that sits between them, but whatever the case, Rachel isn’t a mean person. He knows at least that much. “Sorry,” he says, “but do we have a problem?”

Finally, she grants him a sideways look. “What?”

“It’s just that I think I’ve been mighty kind to you." He's shouting, just by virtue of how loud the bar is, but there's something to be said for how he'd probably shout among the quiet, too. “And from day one you’ve acted like a barn cat who got her tail stepped on.”

“Am I supposed to know what that means?”

He laughs, more out of disbelief than out of humor. The buzz only builds, and he slowly loses hope that the pair of them will ever feel any type of resolve. “It means you can be a real piece of work, Rachel Cameron,” he says. “And I suppose I ought to just leave it at that.”

He stands, and maybe he’s off to the bathroom or maybe he’s off to join Abby, but none of that matters much. All he really wants is to be anywhere else, with anyone else.

Rachel doesn’t let him get very far. “You’re not exactly the picnic that you think you are either.”

This stops him in his stride and pulls at his back, prickling at his shoulders, until he has to turn. Has to meet her where she sits. She’s straighter now, hair curled over her shoulders, as she smacks a fresh piece of Bubblicious between her teeth. Most of her night has been withdrawn, but she rises to a challenge, now. She’s raring for a fight. If Abby blows off steam by dancing, then Rachel surely does so by arguing.

Matt bites his tongue. “Look,” he says. “If I’ve done something to upset you, then I’m happy to apologize, but I’m gonna have to know what it is first.”

She scoffs, and big, brown eyes roll up toward the sky. “Why do you have to be so goddamn sincere all the time?”

“You’re mad that I’m sincere?”

“You’re bad at this.”

“At apologizing?”

“ _ No _ ,” she says. But then, after a moment of contemplation and a sip of her drink. “Well, actually, yes, so far—but that’s not my problem with you. My problem is that you’re bad at this. You’re not supposed to be here. I don’t even know how you got to The Farm, but you’re not cut out for spycraft and you’re dragging my sister down with you.”

Rachel ain’t a mean person. But that doesn’t mean she can’t say mean things.

To her credit, she at least seems to hold some remorse about it, but she doesn’t take it back. She doesn’t stand down. “She’s smarter than you,” she says, barely audible above the band.

Immediately, the buzzing stops, as though she’s taken scissors to all of the tenuous little strings that had been tying them together. The music seems to blur in his ears. “You think I don’t know she’s got me beat by a country mile?”

“Which is exactly why every time she’s with you, Abby drops twenty IQ points,” she says. “You make her look dumb.”

“First off, I could never make her look dumb, and I think you know that.”

“You think I don’t know my own sister?”

“Funny, I didn’t hear those words come out of my mouth.”

“This is what she does, Matthew.” There’s a shift in her voice. If he weren’t trained in languages, and tone, and syntax, he probably wouldn’t even pick up on it. But he is. So he does. “She wastes all of her potential on distractions, and then she expects me to pick up her slack.”

In transcription, there is a moment when everything starts to make sense. A phrase gives way to a sentence. A few letters give way to a language. One word can unlock a full encryption sequence, leading to the broken code. He's not at a desk anymore, but he senses that moment now. “Oh.”

She doesn’t quite roll her eyes this time, but she’s close. “Oh?”

“Well, alright then. That’s all I needed to know.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’d rather be mad at me than be mad at her.”

Again, he’s met with the ruthless absence of any expression—she doesn’t give way to anything. The band starts to play a new song, but Rachel doesn’t seem to notice. Doesn’t seem to care. She’s just staring at Matt, as though he’s a puzzle meant to be cracked. “Way too goddamn sincere.”

He throws his hands up, because most of his conversations with Rachel are better had with a brick wall anyway. “Sure,” he says. “Just know that if it’s easier to be angry with me, then be angry at me. I’ve got no problem with it. Ain’t no use in being angry with family—I get that. You’ve just got to let a guy know, is all.”

He thinks about what Abby had said, about Rachel getting nicer. He hopes it’s true. Her glare tightens with suspicion, paired with an easy cock of her head, and he wonders how a guy gets to know someone like her. “That’s… really kind of you,” she says.

Matt just shrugs. “I always wanted siblings—couldn’t tell you the number of times I begged my mama for a brother. No shame in appreciating what you’ve got.” He throws his thumb over his shoulder. “Now if you’ll excuse me, the restroom’s been calling my name for quite some time now.”

He takes off through the crowded bar, running into shoulders and slipping past elbows. The floor sticks beneath his shoes as neon settles along his skin. Clear cups collect at the base of the trash, and the room feels too hot, but he’s somehow lighter than he was at the start of the night. Maybe Abby was right, about blowing off steam.

As he shuffles through the dancers, he gets pushed closer to the stage. He spots an opened guitar case, coins glittering beneath the show, and he feels for his own pockets, front, then back, then breast. It doesn't take long to realize that he left his wallet back at the table, and it would be awfully rude not to tip.

So he makes a quick trip back, and when he does, he spots Abby, glowing and smiling and drinking. She sips down another sunrise as though dawn depends on her, and he does his best to be discrete. “ _ Christ _ , Matt,” she says, with a jump. “You scared me.”

He spots the wallet on the chair, a thin brown leather without much to it. “Sorry,” he says, reaching for it. “Just forgot—”

“ _ Holy shit _ ,” she says again, and when Matt looks back up at her, she’s frozen in place. It’s eerie, the way she stares at him, as though she’s hollow, and he’s supposed to fill the space. “You  _ scared  _ me.”

“Yeah.” He wonders how many times he's going to have to apologize to these sisters, between the two of them. “Sorry.”

“No,” she says, setting her drink down, as though to make some grand announcement that requires her full attention. “You don’t understand. I haven’t been scared since…”

She reaches out to him. Both hands land on his cheeks, and her breath smells like booze. There’s still a dance to her, although it’s buried beneath a temporary awe. Eyes wide, smile wider, she holds him steady. “Rachel,” she says. “I figured it out. He’s a fucking Pavement Artist.”


	8. Chapter 8

“It’s better,” she says, Tootsie Pop tucked into the corner of her mouth. “But you’re still not thinking about it the right way.”

“I still don’t even know what _it_ is.”

“I told you already.” She lean, lean, leans up against the tabletop, enjoying the view almost as much as the view is enjoying her. “It’s like you’re invisible.”

“I’m not a superhero, Abby,” he bites, although it falls flat against the chatter around them. The sounds of the mess hall bring him back to basic training, except that it’s Navy men this time, not Army, and his only camaraderie is found in the two sisters who sit across from him. The Reserve has taken up training space on campus, and Abby has never taken more of an interest in patriotism. “I can’t turn invisible.”

She’s eying some sailor over Matt’s shoulder, surrendering her sucker for the sake of a smile across the room, paired with a cool, collected wave—the kind that lands more in her fingers than in her hand. His heart pounds against the underside of his chest, threatening to break through. “I’m telling you that you can.”

He shifts in his seat, lean, lean, leaning with her, intercepting her sight. It does nothing to draw her attention back. She only cranes her neck further. “Look,” he says. “Maybe you were wrong about this whole Pavement Artist thing.”

This, at last, pulls her back to him. “Matt,” she says. “I can count the number of times I have been scared, startled, and spooked on one hand. And that night at the bar, I was straight up surprised. I’m not wrong.”

“Maybe—”

“I’m not wrong.”

“Then _tell me_ what I’m supposed to be doing.”

Abby blinks. Matt’s never spoken to her this way before. He can’t imagine many people have. Even Rachel looks up from her book, with a warning glance in his direction. 

He shrinks. All at once he feels the tension in his shoulders, the strain in his back, and the set in his jaw. He’s never considered himself to be a wound up guy, but something about this place has him tighter than a rusted bolt. He has to force his relaxation. “Help me, Abby-Wan Kenobi,” he tries, tentative. “You're my only hope.”

Abby’s nothing, if not a sucker for a good Star Wars reference and so he wins her over, however temporarily. There’s a sigh, and she pops her sucker back into her mouth. “There’s only so many words I can use to explain it,” she says. “You’re the only Pavement Artist I’ve ever seen. And honestly it's more of an old wives tale—an old spy’s tale, if you will.”

Beside her, Rachel rolls her eyes, then turns a page, hardly breaking stride.

“So they ain’t even real?” Matt says. “Because I don’t really have the time to—”

“If they are real,” Abby says, “then you’re one of them.”

“I don’t even know who they are.”

“No one does,” she says with a grin. “That’s what makes them such good spies. They’re the kind of people who fade into a crowd—the kind of people who look like they’re supposed to be anywhere and everywhere. Plenty of people claim to be the real deal, but the real deal doesn’t have to claim anything. They prove themselves just by disappearing when they most need to.”

The more she talks, the more this sounds like one of his mama’s old spy novels, with battered spines, and dog-eared corners, and a seemingly endless strand of whodunits. “But where do they go?”

“I’m telling you,” she says. “They turn invisible.”

The tension twists in his shoulders again. “Well unless you know where I can find a vat of radioactive waste, or a super-soldier serum—”

Rachel snaps her book shut and cuts a stern glance between the two of them. The clatter of the mess hall fills the hot silence, until she finally shakes her head and scoffs. “They don’t turn invisible,” she says, in that especially Rachel-like voice of hers. “They become imperceptible.”

It’s Abby’s turn to roll her eyes. The two of them go back and forth more often than Matt would have ever thought possible between a single siblinghood.

Rachel locks her focus on Matt, and it’s a determined glare. The kind that somehow feels hollow and dense at the very same time. “You try too hard to be sneaky—you’re not supposed to be sneaky. You’re supposed to blend in. Espionage isn’t glamorous. You’re not some superhero, flying through the skies to save the day—you’re a chameleon somewhere deep in the Amazon trying not to get eaten.”

Like a match to its book, the idea strikes him in a new light. The words send him sinking into the starkly organized military chaos that surrounds him and he’s no longer at Campy Peary. Instead, his mind wanders back to Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Back to Monty, and Fitz, and Zeke. Back to the first day they shaved his head and gave him his uniform. “It ain’t invisibility,” he says with a look to Abby. “It’s camouflage.”

Abby makes for a lousy coach, but she’s right about one thing, at least—there ain’t words for it. Not really. Matt doesn’t realize just how instinctual it is until he stands, and he feels something warm fall to his stomach, not by way of anxiety, but as a means of balance. As though a single golden drop of certainty has landed at his base, glistening as it spreads through every inch of him.

He’s not trying to go unseen—he’s not _trying_ to do anything. He simply is. And that, somehow, is enough.

The mess hall is a sea of khakis, blues, and grays. Matt’s got enough white on to look like he’s misplaced a jacket somewhere along the way, and none of these guys are likely to give him the time of day regardless. With one step, then another, he realizes that it ain’t about hiding under tables or sneaking around corners. Of course it ain’t. There’s a reason why the wolf wears sheep’s clothing.

So he starts through the crowd and leaves the ladies behind. He’s never been one to stand out. Never the homecoming king, never the star player. This moment isn’t any different, but only now does he view it as an asset. As a game changer.

When the sailors laugh, he smiles. When they cheer, he joins. Someone asks a question and he answers, weaving effortlessly through the unofficial ranks. All the while, he finds a calm that he hasn’t known throughout his time at Camp Peary. The rightness of the movements feel like a dawn without chores, or the crack of the bat against a soft, straight pitch.

He spots an uneaten brownie at the top of someone’s tray. When he takes it, no one notices. Someone pats him on the back as he passes, and they all carry on with their meals as though he’s meant to be there. 

It occurs to him that he is. Meant to be there. Though not in the way anyone expects.

When he comes back up on the table, Abby and Rachel are both scanning the crowd beyond. He wonders what it is that could have possibly caught their eye—probably another sailor, who is stronger and taller and handsomer than Matt. Cheek stuffed with chocolate, he says, “What are you guys looking for?”

They turn to him like the trained operatives they are—sharp, alert, and with the perfect poker face. That is, until Abby’s resolve melts into wide eyes and a darn good smile. “You,” she says, with no small amount of shock in her voice. “Holy shit, we totally lost you.”

Matt swallows his bite of the brownie. “That’s good, right?” he says. “For you, _holy shit_ is usually pretty good.”

“Holy _shit,_ Matt!”

He’d be excited, but in truth, he’s too relieved. He’s too relaxed. God ain’t one to reach down and move life’s pieces with his own hand, but there’s a certain sense of divinity to the moment Matt’s just shared. The angels aren’t speaking directly to him, but they sure are showing him the right path.

Plus, this brownie is _really_ good. He breaks it in half, extending a piece out to Abby, but she shakes her head, and points at her sucker. 

So he looks to Rachel, who still hasn’t given up on her inscrutable expression, but continues to stare. He’s no expert, but when it comes to Rachel Cameron, sometimes no comment is the best comment. “Cheers,” he says, holding it out to her.

And if he looks very closely, in just the right light, he may just see the slightest smile on her. “Not bad, Nebraska,” she says, taking her half. “Not bad at all.”


	9. Chapter 9

The car barrels toward him at no less than eighty miles per hour and, immediately, one thing becomes abundantly clear: Matt has to get out of the way. 

He’s at the wheel of a ‘76 Oldsmobile, wedged in between a towering post and a hard place. The seconds dwindle as he shifts into an urgent reverse. This car is smaller than the old Chevy he learned on, so he squeezes by without much thought, and whips his way back onto the track.

Abby’s brakes squeal at his rear as she tries and fails to make the turn towards his tail. She’ll need time to swing back around, which gives him plenty of time to race away.

The speedometer creeps up, line by line—85, 90, 95. He’s approaching the dirty edge of his capabilities, and the engine rattles like a snake in the summertime. It’s heating up under the hood, and the Virginian August ain’t forgiving. He’s going to have to find a place to sit idle, cool off, and he’s going to have to find it soon.

He makes a U-turn around the side of an old barn, long abandoned along the edge of Camp Peary’s primary training track. It’ll provide him some cover from Abby, but it won’t do much to combat the high, noon sun. The a/c has been knocked out, so he cranks the window down with one, two, three heavy pulls of the handle and waits for a breeze that won’t come.

It’s not long before a little white Pinto skids to his side, fanning up a cloud of dust in her wake. Matt’s on high alert, but even so, she startles him in a way that spies shouldn’t be startled. “Is this a little different from the derbies you’ve got back home?”

Rachel’s car is in worse shape than his, but she’s also far more likely to drive straight through the center of a wreck. She shouts to him through a shattered window, but Matt gets stuck on the dent in her door, and a headlight that’s not in good health. “That’s Kentucky,” he calls to her. “And this ain’t a derby. This is bumper cars.”

She grins, unrestrained. Matt can’t remember the last time he saw Rachel smile—or if he’s ever seen Rachel smile. There might be something to appreciate about it, except that he doesn’t get the chance. Whatever brief moment they may share is interrupted by the roaring threat of an oncoming crash, and he looks out to once again find Abby on his horizon.

He throws his gear into drive. “Your sister has gone _bananas_ ,” he says. “She’s absolutely losing it.”

Rachel’s got her engine revving, still smiling. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t lose something you never had,” she says. “Funny thing is—this isn’t all that different from how she usually drives.”

“With a total disregard for self-preservation and the rage of a ticked-off bull?”

“Well that’s what happens when your Driver’s Ed instructor is an MI6 demolitions specialist.”

“When you’re _what_?”

“Sorry, _ex_ -MI6 demolitions specialist.”

“That ain’t less confusing. You know that, right?”

“Do you want to sit and chat about my childhood, or do you want to avoid the oncoming wreck that’s headed straight toward us?”

He has to honestly think about it for a moment, but the stench of Abby’s burning tires fills the air. With a nod, he says, “Let’s motor.”

They do, veering off onto two separate paths. Abby’s not likely to follow them both, but if anyone can, it’s her. Matt keeps his eyes pinned to his rearview as he rounds the edge of the track, leaning into the turn as his steering wheel grinds against the palms of his hands.

It comes to him easy. He’s been driving since he was about ten, and his pops took him out to the field to practice. He had to sit on the edge of the seat, back then, and even still, his foot had hardly reached the gas. It’s a humble beginning that leads into a long history of tractors, forklifts, Gators, and the like. At least the Oldsmobile is new. At least the Oldsmobile has all its original parts, and its tire rods ain’t rusting. He may be trying his damndest to avoid a head-on collision in an active pursuit, but at least he’s doing it in a car that won’t break down five miles out of town.

At least, that’s what he thinks, before the steering wheel snaps off in his hands.

Matt’s been driving a long time, and he’s never seen anything like this. In an instant, he looks up toward the sky. “If this is one of your jokes,” Matt says, to whoever may be lending an ear, “it ain’t your funniest.”

He frantically tries to place the wheel back where it belongs and while it does sit in the right spot, it doesn’t catch the way it should. When he turns, the car doesn’t follow, which just ain’t ideal considering the fact that he’s only about two hundred yards from the garage, and closing in fast.

To top it all off, a white Pinto drives in behind him, tailed by a ruthless red mustang.

He gives the wheel another turn, and tosses it aside when it doesn’t work. If he stops, he risks the wrath of Abby. If he keeps going, he runs right through Camp Peary’s vehicle inventory, as well as a dozen classmates who are standing at its front. He tries to use his hands, but he can’t get a good enough grip on the bare bolt to properly navigate.

Rachel’s gaining on him, which means Abby is too.

He searches the car for something—anything—to tighten his grip.

The speedometer reaches 75 and he’s got about a hundred yards to go.

Abby taps Rachel’s bumper, right in the back corner. It’s a dirty move, and it sends Rachel into a spiral, spinning out along dirt and into the sand, and Abby doesn’t slow. One down, one more to go.

Matt throws open the glove compartment.

Fifty yards.

There’s a manual, a loose button, a map.

Forty yards.

When he shuffles through, he finds his golden ticket—or steel ticket. A wrench.

Thirty yards.

Abby’s right on his tail now. How did they let her take the Mustang, anyhow?

Twenty yards.

He can practically see the whites of her eyes through his rearview.

Ten yards.

He jams the wrench onto the empty wheel and slams it to his right.

Momentum throws his entire body into the door, starting from the outside in. It’s his head and shoulders, first. Then his lungs and his brain. Finally his heart catches up with the rest of him and he leans heavy on the brake as he skid, skid, skids to a terse and exhausting stop. Smoke and dust plume up around him, furling against the sun and, as it clears, he’s met with Lincoln’s perpetually firm expression.

Abby’s not far behind, rolling up with a hum in her engine as though nothing’s happened. She bounds out of the car, key in hand, and gleefully hands them over to Lincoln. “Ms. Cameron,” he says. “If Langley ever needs themselves a merciless pursuer, I’ll be sure to pass along your name.”

“Only if I get to bring the ‘Stang with me, sir.”

“I expect nothing less,” he says. Then, without a glance or a smile, “Mr. Morgan?”

Matt’s still got about seventy gallons of adrenalin running through the deepest parts of him, so his name sounds cloudy in the air. Or maybe the dust just hasn’t settled yet. His hands are still gripping onto the wrench for dear life, and he hasn’t quite registered the fact that he’s still alive.

He’s still alive.

And he’s _pissed_.

Matt ain’t typically an angry person, but he can feel it somewhere among the beating sun and the leftover fear as he rams the car into park. Instead of his keys, he grabs the loose wheel from his passenger seat and throws the door open. There’s a definite storm in his step as his shoes crunch against gravel, all the way up to Lincoln. He doesn’t mean to shove the wheel into Lincoln’s chest, but he doesn’t regret it, either. “You’d think the CIA would have a better maintenance team on their cars.”

Lincoln tosses the wheel into the dirt. “I thought you handled the situation fairly well, compared to others I’ve seen.”

“Others?” He finds more meaning in the words, connecting the dots. “You _planned_ this?”

“Of course I planned it,” says Lincoln. “I plan everything.”

“I could have died,” he says. “I could have…”

But he doesn’t have the words for what might have happened. For the destruction he could have caused, or the friends he could have injured. 

Lincoln, however, does. “If the prospect of death frightens you, Mr. Morgan,” he says, “then perhaps you should go back to your desk.”

“No, _forget that_ ,” he says, and it’s possible he’s closer to Lincoln than he should be, but he can’t seem to find the will to care. “I could have killed someone else.”

“Matthew.” It’s not Lincoln this time. It’s not even Abby. This time, it’s Rachel, rejoining them by foot after a long walk away from her wreck. She’s got some scratches on her. There’s already some bruises forming. But she doesn’t seem to notice any of that when she says, “Cool off.”

“But did you see—?”

“Cool”—her glare is uncompromising—”off.”

With her words, he looks back toward Lincoln. His face is made of stone, where Matt’s is made of lava, and it only boils his blood even more. Nonetheless, Matt takes a step back. Bites his tongue. “Thank you, sir.”

Lincoln, as always, looks unimpressed. “Get ahold of yourself, Mr. Morgan,” he says, just before he turns away and hands a pair of keys to another recruit, no time to spare on emotion.


	10. Chapter 10

Tonight is one of those quiet nights that remind him of home.

His room is lit by a single lamp, sitting hot on the corner of his desk. It casts a slashed glow that blurs at its edges, like a porch light up against an endless autumn night. It’s just enough to make out his reference texts, arched across the tabletop with fresh spines that ain’t yet broken in. This year’s first cool evening creeps in through a cracked window and Matt reckons he ought to close it before he goes to sleep tonight, but he lets it be for now. Sometimes Virginia smells like Nebraska and the skies stretch between the states.

His roommate took off in the third week of training, leaving Matt on his own. He was a nice enough guy, recruited out of Brown a few months earlier than Matt. Maybe the allure wore off a few months earlier too, because it didn’t take long until he was packing his bags and swearing that he could make more money in tech for far less strife. Maybe there was some truth to that, although Matt’s ain’t here for the money.

That being said, he doesn’t know what he _is_ here for, but that’s a question for another day when he doesn’t have to write 1,000 words on the functions and methods of Presidential intelligence briefings.

His eyes are starting to cross as he skims through columns of tiny, encyclopedic fonts, spared only by the occasional image or chart. Absentminded solace sits in the uneven tap of his pencil, resting just between his first and second finger, eraser bouncing off of his books. They don’t warn kids about the paperwork before recruiting them. If in his senior year of high school, the Army recruiter had told him he’d be writing the same essays, only harder, longer, and on far less accessible information, Matt imagines he may have explored other professions more thoroughly before signing his name on the dotted line.

Of course, it wouldn’t have changed much, but at least he would’ve had a better idea of what he was getting himself into. Maybe he would’ve practiced his thesis writing just as strictly as he ran his miles or trained his pushups.

He hears a woman’s voice, passing through the hallway on the other side of his door, and his mind wanders to Abby and Rachel. They’re probably turning in analytical works of art, with strong arguments and critical discussion. They’re smart like that—both of them, even if in their different ways. For his part, Matt prefers translation and working with other peoples’ words, because he keeps stumbling over his own. If he keeps falling one step behind, eventually he’s going to get lapped.

Would it really be so bad, if he didn’t graduate?

At some point he’ll have to come to terms with the fact that Lincoln may be a hardass, but he ain’t a dumbass. Before he left for Camp Peary, Matt had a good, safe job with the Army, stationed at a desk. Maybe it hadn’t been the most exciting, and maybe it wasn’t the most challenging, but Cooper had treated him right. They had given him a good set of headphones and a decent salary that could feed a family someday.

Matt’s wanted a family his whole life. He’s only wanted to join the CIA for a few months. Maybe his short-lived roommate had been onto something, allowing the allure to fade.

He turns another page of his book at the same time there’s a knock on the door.

It’s too light to be one of the guys, but it lacks the usual shave-and-a-haircut rhythm that Abby carries in her fist. On his way over, shuffling across carpet in the fading light, he pieces together that it must be one of the guards, making some kind of round—although it’s strange that they would start patrolling now, when so many weeks have already gone by.

He pulls the door open wide, a natural welcome in his words. “Evenin’, how can I help—?”

He doesn’t get the full sentence out before two pairs of hands grab him at each shoulder and yank him into the hallway. His heart jumps up into his throat, then sinks into his stomach, and there’s an innate cruelty to the immediacy of it all. In a single second, his night has gone from quiet to chaos, and he just doesn’t have the mind to keep up with it.

No explanation. No reasoning. “What in the Hell is going on here?”

One of the gentleman says something low in his ear, but he doesn’t catch it above screams coming from down the hall—or rather, battle cries. Abby has her own grab team assigned to her, four against one, and they still seem to be outmatched. She’s kicking, and punching, and swearing up a storm, right up until the biggest guy on her team wraps his arms around her waist and plucks her from the crowd

Rachel’s just behind her, escorted out of their room by a pair of much calmer guards. “Calm down,” Matt hears her say. “It’s just a test.”

“I know it’s a test,” Abby spits, as she squirms and shoves. “Why do you think I’m fucking fighting? And why aren’t _you_ fighting?”

“Who says I’m not?” As she says it, she elbows both of her guards in the ribs, then shoves their hunched bodies face first into the linoleum. She starts towards Abby’s team next, with the kind of fervor that belongs to a sister scorned.

Matt has learned a lot about espionage during his stay at The Farm, but one lesson rises above the rest, obvious in every way—when in doubt, do as the Camerons do.

His mind flashes back to his Basic Training, and to his Army drills, and to all those nights alone in a Virginian gym. To racing hearts, and burning muscle, and the long, sore days that loyally followed. He uses his top tier military training to twist himself out of one hold, then two, and sooner rather than later, his guards are on their backs with the wind knocked out of him.

There’s a pang of guilt, and he considers helping them back up to their feet, at least, but then his mind wanders, curiously, to Zeke. _Your kindness will get you killed._

He runs after the girls to help, although it’s maybe a little predictable that they don’t seem to need much assistance. Abby’s already tumbled out of her hold and knocked one guy onto the ground. He doesn’t appear to be getting back up, and Matt doesn’t blame him, because Rachel’s got a right hook that would make even Muhammad Ali shrivel. 

A second guy tries to sneak up behind Rachel while she’s already handling the first. Maybe he has the element of surprise on his side, but Matt finds it easy to pull this guy from the pack, and jam him into a wall, forearm pinning his neck. “Didn’t your mamas ever teach you boys not to hit a lady?” he says, but he elbows the guy in his nose before an answer comes, and his body slides limp down the wall.

Rachel’s guy joins the pile on the floor by the time Matt turns around. She looks to Matt, then to the unconscious guard, then back up at Matt with something that resembles respect. “Thanks,” she says, just about out of breath.

He nods, cautiously. Talking to Rachel feels a lot like trying to approach a deer—move too quickly, and he’ll scare her right off. “Sure.”

“They’re not going to stop here,” she says. “They’ve got a plan for us, and it’s going to happen whether we like it or not.”

It only sends Matt’s heart further into overdrive. “So then what do we do?”

It’s Abby who answers, from way down the hall. “We keep fighting,” she says. “Until we can’t anymore.”

Sure enough, the sisters are right. Of course they are. Abby acts as their first line of defense, but it becomes clear, as time progresses, that their attackers are only getting stronger, and that their unofficial trio is only getting more tired, and that Rachel’s theory had been as true as fact. Their capture is inevitable, and they’re only making it harder on themselves.

Yet they fight, because sometimes it is all a person can do. Sometimes it takes a hard, hopeless, down-to-the-bones kind of scrap for a man to feel like he’s done all he can—and for him to feel like that is enough, in the end. Matt takes down his share of guards elbowing his way through the ranks one hit at a time, inching ceaselessly ahead in pursuit of unlikely success.

By the time Lincoln walks in, the girls are at Matt’s back as he leads the charge against the oncoming storm. As usual, Lincoln’s expression reads as unamused, unimpressed, and completely uninterested in whatever Matt has to say for himself. “Mr. Morgan,” he says. “That’s quite enough.”

Lincoln reaches his hand out quicker than Matt can deflect it. It lands at his collar, with pressure along his neck, and these are the final details that Matt remembers before the world falls to black.

Some time passes, although he doesn’t know how much.

He awakes to the pounding of his heart against the inside of his skull, dry and overwhelming. It rings in his ears, alongside a harsh, flickering light. Sleep resists as he peels his eyes open, his mouth thick and his blood hot. 

He catches sight of his arms, first—bruised up, with a handful of scratches and cuts. They spot up all along his arm, starting at his shoulder and crawling down to his forearm. They seem to have clasped some sort of gear to his right wrist, clunky and silver without any kind of display. It’s heavy, and so he lets it fall to the icy floor.

He sits atop cracked concrete and, when he’s finally able to look outside of himself, he realizes that the whole room is made of harsh, manufactured stone. There’s a steel door and no windows, and the light is still flickering.

Maybe his body is still in fight mode, because he stands, uneven on his feet, and charges the door, landing three sturdy raps with the side of his first. “Hey!” he calls out, to anyone who will listen. “ _Hey_ , you can’t do this—let me out of here.”

There is no answer. He doesn’t expect one. If one thing is clear about this room, it is that he is completely and utterly alone.

It’s a test, just like Rachel had warned Abby, and it’s not real. None of it is real. Somewhere behind the curtain, Lincoln is pulling the strings, and Lincoln’s not likely to kill him. Lincoln’s not even likely to beat and torture him. There are lines that not even Camp Peary will cross and he’s safe, even if working under the illusion that he’s not.

But Matt’s stomach rumbles. And that damned light is flickering. And it’s cold— _damn_ cold. Maybe the situation isn’t real, but its elements definitely are, and a shiver runs down Matt’s back.

A woman screams from another cell. It’s Abby, not Rachel, because Rachel would never scream. And even if it isn’t Abby, it’s Abby to _him_ , and his heart shreds into bile at the base of his gut. He pounds urgently on the door again, but it only serves to add more bruises to his collection, and so he slides back down to the floor.

With nothing left to do, he brings his hands together at his knees, fingers interlaced, and the frost of his breath falls over his knuckles. His head aches, and his joints are stiff, and there’s another scream. “Hail Mary, full of grace—”

There’s a metallic banging against his door, and laughter that he can’t place to a face. “Hope you’re not tired,” calls an unfamiliar voice. “‘Cause you won’t be gettin’ sleep for a long time.”

Matt’s grip tightens. “The Lord is with thee…”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: this chapter is a literal torture scene. It also leans pretty heavily on religious themes, because that’s who this version of Matt is. If either of those things is likely to trigger a trauma response in you, maybe skip this one! I promise you will still understand what’s going on when you come back.

“Hail Mary.”

The words start in his chest and scratch their way up his throat, fighting through chattered teeth before they eventually fall into his lap. His whole body is wound—every muscle wrapped tight around bone. The shivering is strongest in his shoulders, slicing down his spine and spreading to every inch that his skin can spare.

“Full of grace.”

His breaths are short and staggered, tumbling over rosey red fingertips that sting with not-quite numbness. The shaking won’t stop. Can’t stop. He no longer has control over his own body.

“The Lord is with thee.”

His jaw aches with tension, while his nose and lips fade from feeling. There’s an icy, hollow pressure grinding at the insides of his ears, and he can’t shake it off. Thoughts sit frozen in his mind, unable to thaw, giving way to words born of instinct and absence, as though delivered straight from the mouth of God.

“Blessed art thou among women.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, letting his forehead fall to his knees. The chill of the air bites at his exposed neck, but it grants a brief reprieve to his arms, speckled with now permanent goosebumps. His breath curls against his huddled thighs and casts blessed little warmth across his hands, his chest, his face. He’ll stay here, for now, until the shivering pulls him back upright.

“And blessed is the fruit.”

He takes a deep breath in. For only a moment, he is able to reign in the shakes, but they creep back in at his elbows, then crawl up to his back and twist themselves around his torso. 

“Of thy womb, Jesus.”

When he’s huddled, his stomach knots and cramps, begging, pleading for something to hold onto. He can’t tell if it’s the hunger, or the exhaustion, or the relentless strain of every muscle that brings on his headache, but it pounds against the backs of his eyes, merciless. It’s the endlessness that hurts the most—not the cold, not the anxiety. It’s the edgeless, nonstop promise of persistence, mixed with the restless uncertainty of time.

“Holy Mary.”

His prayer comes out in a strained whisper, and he hopes that God can hear.

“Mother of God.”

A single, quaking sob echoes across the unforgiving concrete, as he spends energy he doesn’t have on tears that he can’t afford to give.

“Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

Matt has lost track of the seconds, the minutes, and the hours, but he’s said the Hail Mary 4,362 times. This beats his previous streak of 159 by a country mile, belonging to an incident in the seventh grade involving his friend Jacob, a stolen inhaler, and a little boy named Gabriel who was far from angelic. Sister Joan had found both Matt and Gabriel with matching shiners and had marched the pair of them into the chapel where they would each run through the Rosary thrice, as a form of repentance. He hadn’t gotten dinner that night. His pops had sent him straight to bed.

“Hail Mary.”

If the angels measure time, then surely they do so in prayers. Otherwise, Matt fears that he may sink into a vast and unforgiving timelessness.

“Full of grace.”

Sure enough, the cold peels him out of his uncomfortable curl and as the center of his back brushes up against cool concrete, he jets up to his feet once more. Too many points of contact. Too much frozen stone against his shoulders, his tailbone, his legs. When he stands, his only enemy is himself, and the air around him.

“The Lord is with thee.”

As he stands, his brain becomes liquid black, washing over his vision and draining down into his blood. Blinking does little to help his clarity, and it’s possible he’s falling. Falling. There’s no end in sight and he must be falling.

“Blessed art thou among women.”

But the world is still upright, and he finds himself pacing. One foot after another, left, right, left, right. Before his first thousand Hail Marys, he would jump an invisible rope or run through his pushup drills, but that all seems so far away now. The fatigue runs deep—beyond his body, beyond his soul, into someplace that Matt never knew existed within him.

“And blessed is the fruit.”

His pops had sent him to bed, and the smells of his mama’s cornbread had wafted down the hall, straight into Matt’s bedroom. He remembers staring at the ceiling, eye swollen and throbbing, wondering about unjust gods and the punishments that they provide.

“Of thy womb Jesus.”

He’s warmer now, but only a touch, and it comes at the cost of a sluggish, uncommitted shuffle in his step. His headache sends sharp, shooting pains into muscles that will no longer accept them. He’s scooped out and washed away. The weight of the world resembles a feather compared to the weight on his own two feet.

“Holy Mary.”

He could end this now. He knows he could. Somewhere above him, they’re listening to every word he says and watching every move he makes. If he only surrendered, he could be done—for good—and he’d be back in Nebraska by the next mealtime. 

“Mother of God.”

Left, right, left, right. He doesn’t know how he would face his pops. He doesn’t know how he would look Cooper in the eye and beg for a job. He doesn’t know how he would walk before Lincoln, shame on his shoulders, as he packed his bag with that knowing glare on his back—the fact that Lincoln had been right all along and Matt wasn’t cut out for this life. All of these men, making the decision for him, holding him to higher standards.

“Pray for us sinners.”

But those men aren’t in this room. They don’t face the cold, or fight the hunger, or beg for sleep. For better or for worse, there is some part of him that cannot, will not, and never could fail to meet their expectations, but his own personal secret in this moment is that, for the first time in his life, he would trade their disappointment for his peace faster than a jackrabbit runs from wolves.

“Now and at the hour of our death.”

So then why doesn’t he?

“Amen.”

There’s something more to it—and it’s the sort of thing that would probably be easier to figure out if he could just close his eyes, but every time he does, a guard comes by and bangs metal against his door for the length of five Hail Marys. There’s something more to his pacing, and his patience, and his prayer, but he doesn’t know what.

“Hail Mary.”

He could be on a Greyhound in a matter of moments if only he said the word, but he doesn’t want to be. He wants to be here, despite the fact that it’s Hell.

“Full of grace.”

His knees are weakening. His steps are slowing. His mind loses track of his body and he trips over himself, rolling an ankle. Falling. He must be falling, and this time the room falls with him. The base of his palms scratch against the icy floor, and it feels as though his knees have shattered. He makes no effort to return to his feet.

“The Lord is with thee—”

There’s a small, weighty creek at his front, eerie and sickening and present. It takes him a moment to realize that it’s the door—except that it can’t be the door. That door doesn’t open. It can’t be the door, because Matt’s going to die here.

This time, the voice is not his own. “Give us names, Mr. Morgan.”

It’s Lincoln, crouched down to meet Matt. There’s something like pity in his eyes, although Matt’s mind gives way to larger concerns. His elbow is bleeding, now, and the light behind Lincoln blurs. 

Lincoln tries again. “The two women we captured with you—give us their names.”

This is a test. None of it is real. Except that Matt’s cramps are real, and his exhaustion is real, and the way Lincoln begs for him to put an end to all of this is real. Two names and he could be done. He could sleep, and eat, and drink as much water as he could possibly want. This is the sort of temptation that they talk about, in the white-steepled churches of a Nebraskan summer.

Abby and Rachel.

Abby and Rachel.

Their names sit at the front of his mind, adding weight to his headache.

But Matt doesn’t say them. And he doesn’t know why. He simply looks up at Lincoln, and he picks up where he left off.

“Blessed are thou among women,” he stutters. “And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”

Abby and Rachel.

Abby and Rachel.

Lincoln hangs his head. Stands. “Your stubbornness will get you killed.”

Another name pops into his head next, a seamless transition. 

Abby.

Rachel.

Zeke.

Zeke.

Joe.

“Holy Mary, mother of god.”

The door squeaks once more, squealing against a silence that is no longer flooded by Abby’s screams. He wonders if she’s alive, or if the cold got to her first.

“Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

The door slams shut, echoing within his four walls.

“Amen.”


	12. Chapter 12

Matt doesn’t say the Hail Mary any longer.

His throat scratches with even the thought of speaking. His mouth is thick, and dry, with an ache that sinks into his teeth. The sleeplessness settles in the hang of his jaw and he’s lost track of words he’s known all his life.

And, anyway, God don’t appear to be listening.

Instead, it’ll be a bored CIA-whoever, sitting at a desk with headphones and a lackluster lunch. It’s pointless to linger on the irony of the moment—to revisit the number of times when Matt was on the other side, listening to someone talk through a microphone they could not see. He’s spent hours of his life waiting for a person of interest to say their keyword, and now they wait for him.

Abby and Rachel. It would only take two words.

Two words for a cup of water. Two words for a blanket and a hot shower. Two words for food, and feeling, and the longest continuous stretch of sleep that his body has to offer. All he has to do is say those two little words, and he’ll reach an end to this torturous night, week, year—however long it may be.

Even the shivering has stopped, as he now lays numb along concrete. Cool air sits on his skin as though it was always meant to be there, while his thoughts slow against the chill. His eyes fall shut, however briefly, until someone makes another round to bang on his door.

Abby and Rachel.

Two words and he gives up his friends. Two words and who knows what happens to them, somewhere in their own cells. Pray for us sinners, as sin tempts him well into betrayal. Two words, and he could be free of this ceaselessness.

He still holds some warmth at the very center of his body, somewhere just between his heart and his stomach. It radiates beyond his lungs and toward his hips, fading fast with each inch. Ice has crawled from knee to toe. His fingers have long since gone senseless. The ground is hard beneath his head and grants no relief from the sharp, red sting at the tips of his ears. Curled up against his own heat, his stomach grumbles, then cramps, then gives up.

Abby and Rachel.

Two words and he fails. Two words and he heads back to Kansas, bags packed. Two words and the Morgan family military history is erased—ending with him in a way that it has never ended with a Morgan before.

Abigail and Rachel Cameron.

He opens his eyes. His thoughts take a moment to catch up with him and when they do, he thinks of the men on the other side, listening in. “I don’t want to be here.”

The words leave smoke in the air as they press past heavy lips. They don’t echo and they don’t land. He can’t even hear them in his own ears, and so he strains to sit up. He pulls his knees in close. He draws from the warmth at the center of his chest and he shouts. “I _don’t_ want to be here.”

Then, despite it all, he laughs.

It’s a short huff of a thing, and it scares him. Terrifies him—raw and exposed against his huddle. He sounds crazy. Maybe he is crazy. The laughter is not his own, even though it is.

“That’s my answer, you son of a bitch,” he calls to the room, knowing that the ears will hear. “Why do I want to be here? I don’t.”

The room doesn’t answer, because maybe Lincoln is a coward, or maybe no one is listening after all. Maybe Matt truly has lost his sense. But the question has haunted him ever since Lincoln first asked it, and only now does he have an answer. It feels right to say it aloud, even if only for himself.

“I don’t _want_ to be here,” he says, one last time. “I _have_ to be here. I do. Because I’m never going to be able to live with myself otherwise.”

With these words, the warmth finally leaves him. Sleep threatens to take him without consent and without interruption, as black spots cloud his vision. He has no tears left to cry. He has no words left to say. They’ve broken him down to his bare bones and it occurs to him that there’s another ending to this scenario that he hadn’t considered: his own.

Somehow, his wound muscles relax, and his fight dims. He at least has enough sense about him to know that he’s going to pass out, although he doesn’t know what comes after that. Do they let him die, if he can’t give them names? Maybe none of this was a test after all.

He thinks he may be dreaming, when he hears a click.

Entirely by accident, Matt has memorized every little sound in this cell. He knows the buzz of the light as though it is his favorite song. He knows the footsteps in the hallway as though they are his own. Every tap, every clank, and every last drip. Matt knows the sound of his cell in the same way he knows his own heartbeat.

Throughout every last Hail Mary, there has only ever been one click. 

He dares to stand, sluggish though it may be. He’s sure that the sound must have come from the door, although doubt floods his movements. He’s fighting against the weight of the frosted air as he reaches his hand toward the handle, and shivers at its touch. There’s no reason he should be able to pull it open, but he does. With ease.

It reveals a hallway of identical doors, all of which are sealed just as tightly as his had been. This is part of the test. It must be. From this point on, everything will be a part of the test.

He shuffles onward, unbothered, undisturbed. His wasteful stride carries him thoughtlessly down the hall—left, right, left, right—until he reaches a second door. He’s just as surprised when this one opens as easily as the first.

He notices the warmth, first. Never before has room temperature felt like such a comfort. Never before have painted walls struck him as a luxury. It's a deeply boring lobby, but it feels like angelic relief. The ground is softer beneath his shoes and in his stupor, he imagines ripping the carpet up around his shoulders and wrapping himself up before he falls asleep. Right here. Right now.

He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know when he is. He hardly even knows who he is.

The voice is a blessing, coming at him echo first and pinning him to a single moment. “Matthew.”

She’s pressed up against the wall, sitting cross-legged by the door as she keeps a watchful eye. Her demeanor is a far cry from her usual brand of steely, nose-up resolve, all wrapped up in rounded shoulders and a shirt that hangs too loose from her torso. Matt catches sight of her just as she starts to stand, and her gaze never leaves him. “Rachel,” he says. “What are you…?”

His words don’t come, and he can feel the chap on his lips. Dryness pulses through the front of his head, and for the first time in his life, he’s able to feel the actual rotation of the Earth beneath his feet.

As she approaches, he’s slowly able to register more details about her. Her shirt is wrinkled and the scrunchie around her wrist has long been stretched out. That’s important, but he has no capacity to imagine why. “I was just waiting—” She clears her throat, and rocks once on her heels. “You lasted longer than anyone else. I was curious to see how long you’d go, that’s all.”

He hears her talking, but he’s still just trying to catch up with her presence. Her usually perfect ballerina bun sags low on her head and loose strands curl out from behind her ears. Has her hair always been curly? He’s heard about people hallucinating after a few sleepless nights. Maybe he’s still in that cell and this is all a dream.

“I don’t…” He shuts his eyes tight, hoping to make everything stop. The headache, the light, the spinning. It doesn’t do much, and so he fights to open them again. “They wanted your names and I couldn’t… I mean I wouldn’t—”

“Yeah.”

Finally, he’s able to take in all of her, and he’s not sure how he noticed the bruise last. It rings her left eye, made up of fading purples. “Is your eye okay?”

She reaches up to touch it, something like a smile on her lips—but not quite. She’s got these nuances to her that he can’t decipher right now. Hell, he can’t even figure them out when the world is standing still. “Leftover from our little spat the other day.”

He’s not sure he heard her right. “Other day?”

And there’s that nuance again, with something like pity, but not quite. “It’s been four days since they came to our rooms.”

Four. Had it felt longer? Shorter? He isn’t sure, and anyway it doesn’t seem important. His mind is still one step behind in this conversation, lingering along the fade of her black eye. She’s got another bruise on her collar, not quite as prominent. He’s certain that they extend beyond his line of sight, spotted just the same as a barn cow.

Did he just compare Rachel to a cow? “I should go.”

“You should sleep.”

“I should sleep.”

Four days. The number finally lands on his shoulders, weighing them down. He may just sink into the ground, right where he stands. His entire body feels fluid and weak. How long it had been for him. How long it must have been for all of them. “Did you…?” he tries. “I mean are you…?”

Again, the words fail him, getting caught somewhere between his mind and his mouth. He’s still thawing out, and his thoughts are lagging. It’s instinct, when he reaches out to her. It’s impulse, that guides his hand to her cheek. There’s something about sleeplessness that wears down his inhibition. She shivers at his touch, but she doesn’t pull away. That’s important too, but again he doesn’t know why. “Four days,” he echoes.

She reaches her own hand up to meet his, and her palm is warm against his fingers. “Don’t you worry about me, Nebraska,” she says. His thumb finds the edge of her bruise and she winces, still tender. “You had your torture and I had mine.”

Torture. He hasn’t yet said the word aloud, but it falls from her mouth easy as a Sunday morning. One day, these women are going to have to tell him how they so effortlessly endure the desperate, bloody, screaming side of espionage. 

The screams. “Where’s Abby?”

Rachel takes a slow, steady breath in, drawing her shoulders back once more. She looks more like herself this way. Her eyes shift from him, to the floor, then back to him again. When she lets her hand fall, she takes his with her. She rocks back again, this time giving way to her heels and taking a full step. “Last I heard, she was going to the gym.”

“I should see her.”

“You should sleep.”

“I should see her.”

“Matthew.” There’s that familiar voice, strong. Determined. Maybe he’s not hallucinating after all, as the world begins to fall back into place around him. “Don’t talk to Abby right now.”

“I want to make sure—”

“She was alone,” Rachel says. “For a long time.”

The Hail Mary runs through his head once more, automatic. “We all were.” The buzz of the light. The bang of the door. “Weren’t we?”

“Yeah, but Abby…” Words seem to fail her, this time. “She’s never done well by herself.”

It’s all the more reason to make sure she’s not alone. It’s all the more reason for him to be there—when she needs him. She _needs_ him. And so he takes off without thinking, through another dreamless night toward the woman of his dreams. His feet move without will, taking an absent path. He’s never been one to sleepwalk, but then again, he’s never had a reason to start.

Matt leaves Rachel at his back, and trudges onward through exhaustion.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! A warning: this chapter contains recountings of self-harm. Please tread lightly.

Abby’s holding at least a hundred pounds over her head.

Her wrists are wrapped in worn white tape, arms solid as she jerks a barbell into the air. Her movements are fluid. Her stance is sturdy. She’s done this hundreds of times. Whatever strain she feels is familiar, fed by the type of discipline that Matt has only ever met in the dusty hours of dawn. 

She throws the weight to the floor and it bounces at her feet. Beneath the sweat and the stray curls, her usual smile has been replaced with stone. Throughout their weeks together, Matt has seen her in so many different lights. He’s seen her delighted and determined. He’s seen her confident and calm. Now, for the first time since they’ve met, she looks new. She looks different. She looks terrifying.

She swipes her lip with the back of her hand. Without looking up, she greets him. “Welcome back, Morgan.

Her stance sets at a hip’s length, as she bends over again and grips the bar. There’s barely any effort to her as she pulls it overhead another time, holds it there, then lets it drop. Banging metal reverberates against the inside of his head, wrapping around his sleepiest thoughts and strangling them before they can reach his mouth. “Abby,” he starts, but he doesn’t have an end.

She yanks her hair tighter against her scrunchie, and her hands land on her hips. A foot rests on the center of her bar, and she rocks it back and forth, back and forth, thoughtless. Her breath is heavy, reaching through the top of her chest until he can see it. “I heard you gave them a run for their money.”

His steps are heavy. Clumsy. But he has to get closer to her. He has to be near her. “Are you okay?”

As he approaches, he can feel more and more of a buzz to her—an invisible chaos that radiates from the deepest parts of her soul. It hits Matt in waves, anxiety bubbling up, up, up, until it squeezes into her voice. “I was just tortured for three days straight,” she snaps. “Do you think I’m okay?”

“Four days, I thought?”

“Three.” She finally meets his eye, and Matt wonders if maybe he looks different, too. “Maybe _you_ lasted four, but I only lasted three, before I started bashing my own head in.”

It takes her mention of it for Matt to finally notice the gashes in her forehead. This, more than anything else, proves just how far gone he really is. It should have been the first thing he saw in her. There’s two of them—one running parallel to the other, side by side—scabbed over now, but freshly so. They’re obvious.

“As it turns out,” she says, “when you draw your own blood, they’re legally required to let you out of your cell.”

“All part of your master plan, I reckon?”

She grants him a once over, from head to toe, then back. “You could say that.”

When she lifts again, she holds it overhead for only a moment before she lowers it down onto the back of her shoulders. This is where it rests, without effort, as she carries it to the bench. Her back strains against the weight of it, the flex of her arms caught in the overhead light. 

She sweats, but Matt doesn’t see any water. Her hands blister, but he doesn’t spot any chalk. It’s nothing but complete control as she lowers herself to the edge of the bench, then rocks back one, two, three times before she finally rests the barbell in the rack. As she does, she reveals a thick, red streak of pressure, just below her neck. Some people like to leave their all at the gym, but somewhere in his groggy mind, Matt knows that this is different. It’s like she’s looking to bleed.

The room feels slower as she rolls out her neck—first left to right, then right to left. The distance seems to grow farther and farther with each passing second and he thinks he may be falling. Falling. Right up until Abby’s voice pulls him back. “Give me a spot?”

It’s not a question. She lays back on the bench, her tied up hair hanging loose over the edge. The light seems to shine a spotlight on her newfound scars, and it takes time for her words to fully reach him. He doesn’t completely hear them at first, so instead, he asks, “Why did you do that to your head?”

Her hands grip the bar, fingers curling, and it must take time for his words to reach her, too. “A spot, Matt.”

“Abby—”

“Look,” she snaps. “Either make yourself useful or fuck off. Your choice.”

He hears the sharpness in her tone, but it’s dulled by the thickness of the air. It’s hot in here, as though summer has somehow snuck in an extra day, and it feels strange against his freezing skin. Another round of shivers shake through him, stealing his conviction straight from his lips. “I ain’t in any shape to be spotting anyone.”

“Then I guess you’ve made your choice.”

She lifts the barbell back off of the rack and begins her reps. She’s slow, her breathing heavy, and even the most exhausted parts of Matt know that it’s just not right to leave her in here alone when she’s lifting weight that heavy. He shakes his head clear of the fog and takes his place above her.

His attention locks on the scars once more, staring, his eyes loose and his head heavy. Abby lowers, then she lifts. Lowers, then lifts. Somewhere in his consciousness, her grunts are translated into screams that sit ghostly on his ears. “Was it you?” he asks. “Screaming?”

Lowers, then lifts. “Better than listening to the bullshit going on in my own head.”

“Did they…?” Beat you? Break you? Hurt you? The words fail. His words keep failing him.

Her grip twists against her palms. “They tried,” she says. “But I did plenty of damage on my own.”

Lowers, then lifts. “I heard you.”

Her back arches, shoulders taught. There’s a shake to her arms. Her voice strains when she says, “Not my problem.”

Lowers.

He doesn’t mean for it to sound like a problem that she ought to fix. More than anything, he’s trying to process it—she’s not hurt, but she’s hurting. They didn’t strike her, but she struck herself. Maybe he should have known that some people will do their own torturing, if given the chance. Maybe he should have known that Abby would be one of them.

This single thought consumes enough of his mind that he doesn’t notice the barbell sitting flat across Abby’s chest until she calls to him. “ _Matt_.”

The word is breathless, as a hundred pounds sit heavy on her lungs. He grips the bar, frantic, but his fingers are slipping and he can’t get his arms to move the way he wants them to. The strain stretches through his forearms, his shoulders, his back, but his muscles have turned to rubber. His bones have turned to string. A hundred pounds is easy, except when it’s not, and his feet are slipping.

He bolts to the side of the bench instead, positioning his whole body beneath the plates. Abby’s gasping at nothing, squirming and squeezing her way into breath, as he presses up and tosses the barbell to a single side.

The weights clatter against the floor as they land and Abby sits herself upright with a rough breath in. She coughs, and clutches at her collar. “What the hell?”

“M’sorry.”

She turns toward him with a fire that he’s never seen in her before and when she stands, she wastes no time. She charges him, and he retreats, but his backward step is nothing compared to her forward, so she gets a good shove in. “What was that, huh?” she says. “Another _test_? You’re in on it now, too?”

He doesn’t have the energy to keep up with her on a good day, and he certainly doesn’t have it now. “What?”

Another shove, and he keeps trying to back up, but she’s relentless. “You’re trying to kill me? You’re all trying to fucking kill me.”

“Abby—”

But she lands a third and final shove, straight into his chest, and his feet can’t move as fast as they usually do. There’s a disconnect, as though it just takes too long for his mind to reach all the way to his feet, and he’s falling. Falling. 

When he lands, he feels something pop in his wrist, but he’s lost track of the place in his chest where his screams come from.

Abby looms over him, her presence usually such a comfort, now his biggest and most immediate fear. “Don’t fuck with me, Morgan,” she says. “I swear to God, I’ll—”

“Ms. Cameron.” Matt never thought he’d be thankful to hear Lincoln’s voice. “That’s quite enough of that.”

Abby doesn’t ease up. Everything about her is on high alert and she’s running on adrenaline. Matt isn’t sure what he’s running on, anymore.

“Mr. Morgan,” says Lincoln, standing tall in the doorway. “A little birdie told me you might be here. Nice to have you join us again. I think it’s time we get you looked at by a medic. And maybe some soup.”

With an uneasy turn toward Lincoln, Matt nods, and slips out from beneath Abby’s glare. He cradles his arm as he stands and takes off faster than he thought he could.

Lincoln leads the way, pulling Matt close at his side. As the pair of them leave, Matt sneaks one more glance over his shoulder to see if he can spot the old Abby. His Abby. But instead he just catches this wrought, exhausted woman as she kicks the bench over, rips the tape off of her arms, and starts to cry.


End file.
